Ossiach

Home of the Carinthian Summer Festival, Ossiach is overflowing with tourists during the high season. Ossiach has other attractions, including the 11th-century Stift Ossiach, a typical monastery with a chapel at the side. The chapel, despite its stern, conservative exterior, is wonderfully Baroque. Legend has it that in the 11th century the Polish king Boleslaw II lived incognito in the monastery for eight years, pretending to be mute, in penance for murdering the bishop of Kraków. A tombstone and a fresco on the church wall facing the cemetery commemorate the tale.