Walking the Wörthersee Rundwanderweg

Klagenfurt is in the area of Austria called Kärnten. In the UK, we refer to this area as Carinthia. To the West of Klagenfurt, there is a lake called Wörthersee. Being 17K long  and 1.6K wide, it's a long and thin lake.

Above, there is a Google map of this area. The blue line on the map shows the Wörthersee Rundwanderweg. This is a 55K path in the forests that lie to the North and South of the lake. The path of the Wörthersee Rundwanderweg takes the walker several times from 450m to about 670m and back down again.

In what follows, I'll refer to the Wörthersee Rundwanderweg as the WRWW.

There is an excellent leaflet describing the WRWW. It's available from the Tourist Information Offices in the area. I obtained copies from both the Tourist Information Offices in Maria Wörth and Krumpendorf. Unfortunately, the leaflet doesn't seem to be available on the web.

I'll refer to this leaflet as the WRWWL.

The map in the WRWWL contains the most authoritative description of the route of the WRWW (that I've seen). Although the route of the WRWW is also shown on the Kompass map of Wörthersee (map 61), the route shown there is in several places different from what happens in practice.

The route

I walked the WRWW in August 2011. Whilst walking the route, I used a Garmin Forerunner 305 to record where I'd been.

The route of the WRWW (as recorded by my Garmin) is shown above. Here are some links to files that also show this route. If you're confused by this table, click on the link labelled map without photos.

The WRWWL says the route is 55K long. However, the route given by this kml file is 60.2K long.

Accessing the route Although the WRWW visits a few towns (Klagenfurt, Reifnitz, Velden), if you want to do the route over several days, you'll more than likely need to use other paths to get to the WRWW. There are some Verbindungswegen (connecting paths) marked on the map given in the WRWWL. Whilst walking the WRWW, I used many of these paths and a few others. The connecting paths on the map go to the towns with ports so that you can catch the ferry back to where you are staying. I didn't fully investigate the prices of the ferry. However, I think they are expensive. So instead I aimed for a bus stop or a railway station in these towns. Here are some links to files that show the connecting paths I used (as recorded by my Garmin). If you're confused by this table, click on the link labelled map without photos. map using kml kml file map using gpx gpx file map without photos map with photos kml file without photos kml file with photos map gpx file In Klagenfurt, the route of the WRWW runs North to South along the promenade of Klagenfurt's Strandbad (beach). This area is about 4K to the West of the centre of the town. If you are staying in Klagenfurt, and you want to get to the WRWW, the nicest walk and the easiest route as far as navigation is concerned is along the towpath of the Lend Canal. The start of the Canal is at Lendhaven which lies about 0.35K West of Heiligengeistplatz (a bus interchange in the centre of Klagenfurt). On my first day, I walked 1.8K from the Klagenfurt Hauptbahnhof (the railway station) to Lendhaven. I then walked 3.6K from Lendhaven alongside the Canal until I reached the Loretto Bridge. This is on the WRWW and is about 0.3K South of the Strandbad. Although this is a pleasant walk, I found it boring as I was keen to get to the WRWW. In my opinion, it's better to get the number 10 bus from Heiligengeistplatz to the Strandbad. Buses in Klagenfurt are run by STW. Here is a link to a PDF giving the timetable of the number 10. On Sundays (and public holidays), there's a service every hour from Heiligengeistplatz to the Strandbad. On other days of the week, there's a service every 20 minutes. Finding your way The route of the WRWW is marked with waymarks painted in three bands of blue, white and blue. You will find these on barks of trees, on posts and on the ground. In villages and towns, look for them on the tarmac at road intersections. There's an example in the above photo. The route is also signposted by arrowed signs that have black writing on a yellow background. The arrows will either point back the way you've come or point in your onwards direction. Obviously, the sign will have the name of the destination. Sometimes this will be accompanied by a route number (e.g., 18) and this indicates you should follow route 18 if there's no marking for the WRWW. The destinations are sometimes accompanied by the time it'll takes to get there. However, I found that there were lots of inconsistencies with these times from one signpost to the next. For example, you may have walked for 20 minutes and the time to your destination on the next signpost is still the same as that on the previous signpost. Or the sum of the times back to A and forwards to B varies from one signpost to the next (which I found a bit troublesome!). There're examples of signposts in the next photo. The route is well signed. In fact, there were many hours where I just followed the waymarks and the signposts and didn't bother to look at the WRWWL's map. However, I did find the signage lacking in the towns (Klagenfurt, Velden, Pörtschach and Krumpendorf). In those towns, I did have to use the map. Collecting stamps The WRWWL says During your hike along the circular hiking trail, you will get to 10 spots ("Stempelstationen") where you can collect stamps. These spots are marked with numbers 1 to 10. The WRWWL has 10 images of a strange figure called the Wörthersee-Mandl, one for each of the 10 spots. It asks you to put each stamp in the right place. For a small fee, you can get a Wörthersee-Mandl-Pin. 9 stamps gets you a gold pin, 6 stamps gets you a silver pin, and 3 stamps gets you a bronze pin. The WRWWL says You will get the Wörthersee-Mandl-Pin in all the tourist offices in the region of Lake Wörthersee. The next photo shows one of the Stempelstationen.

My trip along the WRWW

Whilst in the Klagenfurt area, I ran a 10.4K race and a Half Marathon. So the walking of the WRWW was fitted around these events and some days resting before and after. Although I had planned to do the WRWW in 5 days, on day 5 my Garmin had a battery that was nearly flat and so I curtailed day 5 and introduced day 6.

The following table shows what I did on each day.

Whilst walking the WRWW, I sometimes did other things and so deviated from the route. And I occasionally got lost. The kml and gpx files show the route that I would have taken if I had just kept to the WRWW. So they have been pieced together from bits of the gpx files that my Garmin produced. The time to walk that value gives an estimate of the time that I would have taken to walk this route.

Connecting transport

On the South bank, Postbus Service 5310 is a bus service from Klagenfurt to Reifnitz, Maria Wörth and Velden. The first service on Mondays to Saturdays leaves the bus station outside Klagenfurt Hauptbahnhof at 11.50a.m. It arrives at Reifnitz at 12.15p.m. and Maria Wörth at 12.18p.m. On Mondays to Fridays, a return service leaves Maria Wörth at 5.42p.m. and Reifnitz at 5.45p.m. It arrives at Klagenfurt Hauptbahnhof at 6.10p.m. On Saturdays, the last service of the day leaves Maria Wörth at 12.57p.m. and Reifnitz at 1p.m. It arrives at Klagenfurt Hauptbahnhof at 1.25p.m. There are no services on this route on Sundays (and presumably public holidays). Although this service does not go to the Heiligengeistplatz, it passes through Stauderplatz which is nearby. I think it costs 3.40 euros to go from Klagenfurt Hauptbahnhof to Maria Wörth. Details about the times of buses are available at http://www.oebb.at/en. In particular, here is a link to a web page where you can search the timetables and here is a link to a page that has a link to a PDF for the timetable of the 5310.

On the North bank during the day there is a half hourly train service (the S-Bahn) connecting Klagenfurt Hauptbahnhof with the Bahnhofs at Krumpendorf, Pörtschach and Velden. Fares from Klagenfurt are as follows: to Krumpendorf is 1.90 euros, to Pörtschach is 3.40 euros and to Velden is 5.40 euros. Apart from Klagenfurt, these railway stations do not have ticket offices. Instead, at each railway station, there is a machine for dispensing tickets (Fahrkarten). This is driven by a touch screen that can display dialogues in English. It accepts coins, 5 euro notes and 10 euro notes but not 20s and 50s (when dispensing cheap tickets). Details about the times of trains and the price of fares are available at http://www.oebb.at/en. In particular, here is a link to a web page where you can find the times of services between two places. You can also use this page to produce a PDF containing all the services in both directions each day between two places. By default, you'll get bus services as well as train services.

More details about the route of the WRWW

The following table gives some more details about the route of the WRWW. All distances are given in Ks.

Each line of the table (except the first) describes a section of the route. It gives a description of where this section ends together with a link to a Google map showing where the endpoint is and a link to a Google map showing the route of the section. Some of the lines also have descriptions for one or more connecting paths.

Refreshments during the walk

Apart, obviously, from the large towns at the beginning and end of each day's walking, I saw few places for refreshments. The only other places I saw were the bar-restaurants in Reifnitz, a bar-restaurant at Weisses Rössl and a hut at the North East end of Forstsee.

Trail runs and speed walking

In the forests on both the South and the North banks, there are signs for lots of trail runs. There's one in the photo on the right. These signs are giving information to a runner as to which way to go next.

Here is a link to a web page giving details of trail runs in various areas of Carinthia. So, say you are interested in trail runs in the Sekirn area (which is between Klagenfurt and Reifnitz). Go to the page giving details of trail runs in various areas of Carinthia and then click on the Sekirn link. That will take you to the page for runs in the Sekirn area. If you look closely at the photo on the right, you'll see that it indicates to a runner that he/she is at the 4.55K point of a 11.08K run which is run number 7 in the Sekirn area. Click on the photo if you want to see a bigger image. That particular run is described in blue on the right hand side of the page for runs in the Sekirn area.

In the forests on the North banks, as well as the signs for trail runs there are also signs for routes for doing speed walking.

Other information

Here is a link to a web page describing the Wörthersee Rundwanderweg.
That web page is in German. Here is a link to Google's translation of that page.

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Barry Cornelius
If you find errors or you want to send praise (!), please e-mail me.
First created: August 23rd 2011
Last updated: September 4th 2011