Viktring

Viktring lies south of Klagenfurt at the foot of the Goritschnigkogel and where the Keutschach valley begins. The Glanfurt stream marks part of the boundary with other districts and nearby villages. The land rises gently from the valley floor to the Sattnitz ridge, twenty metres above the plain. The village first appears in records from 982 under the name Vitrino, though this may refer to a wider district rather than the settlement itself. Its importance grew after Count Bernhard of Marburg founded a Cistercian monastery there in 1142. The abbey became one of the richest in the region and remained a centre of religion and learning until it was dissolved in 1786. In 1920 more than eighty-two per cent of local people voted to stay in Austria during the Kärnten plebiscite. A tablet beside the Glanfurt bridge recalls their decision. Visitors walk past the former monastery, now a grammar school specialising in music and the arts. The surrounding streets form a quiet residential quarter close to the Wörthersee. To the north the Straschitzer Plateau once held anti-aircraft batteries in the last months of the Second World War. The area remains largely unchanged, with farmland and small woodlands giving way to suburban homes near the lake.