Time for another Stadt Bummel. This was earlier in the spring. Dave and I were checking out a property for some work but took the chance to wander around this small town as we’ve so often just driven though. The church was our start point as surprisingly doesn’t seem to have a Patron Saint unlike most churches.
Built right on the top of the hill, it has a Roman stone outside, and Dave though the side door looked a bit so too.
Maybe it was originally built in two parts, see the different patterns. Then we took the steps down into the village.
The new Road has obviously bisected the town and a couple of years a go they even demolished an old building to cut out a nasty bend. I can find very little information on this. On one side is all the new stuff and the other the old. The old shop fronts are a testimony to the older prosperity of the place. What happened? Maybe on a major route, from Italy, it’s at a tuning point for the hills in Karinthia. Most of the new developement is on the far side of the new road, in Steindorf maybe the Schloss stopped anything changing, being the landlord??
The older, inner village has two huge hotels/pubs,which look out of use and unloved. There is a 1970s rebuild of one too, and what may have been a smithy. So there was prosperity in the town but it’s gone. Is this because of the road? The town has three schools. Look at the old centre.
The most interesting thing though, is the town has Schloss Goppelsbach.
Not a Burg but a well maintained private house. Here’s the old gatehouse dating to the 15th Century .
looks like a face doesn’t it? The road beyond this fizzles out and on this first visit we went back. On looking at the map, the Murradweg, which is a bike path runs along the river to the next village of Einach.
Our next trip is tom look at these paths as we’ve seen some very old things marked in the woods. old Roman stones, and old village. We’ll see!
