Klagenfurt
The ford of lament, and its demons
Photograph by Johann Jaritz on Wikimedia Commons
About Klagenfurt
The capital of Carinthia and the sixth-largest city in Austria, seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gurk-Klagenfurt and home to three institutions of higher education, including the university. It is considered the cultural centre of the Carinthian Slovenes, one of Austria’s indigenous minorities. The name translates literally as ford of lament, or of complaints, and the Carinthian linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer put that down to a superstition about the fateful fairies or demons thought to haunt such crossings.
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Nearby, across borders
Within 60 km as the crow flies, in any country.





