Lendkanal

The Lendkanal is a four-kilometre-long artificial waterway running from Wörthersee into the heart of Klagenfurt. It follows the line of the old Lendweg and Schiffgasse before turning west past Minimundus and the Europapark. The canal is bordered by the Villacher Strasse on one side and the Tarviser Strasse on the other. Several bridges cross the water, some of them built in the 19th century and still carrying pedestrians and cyclists. In winter the canal often freezes, creating a long natural ice rink close to the city centre. The canal began as a 16th-century project to bring water and building materials into the rebuilt town after a great fire. Emperor Maximilian I gave the land to the estates of Carinthia, who hired Bohemian workers to dig the Seegraben. By 1558 it had been widened to forty metres and used by a hundred cargo boats carrying stone, timber and grain. Venetian gondoliers were brought in to help steer the larger vessels. In the 19th century the canal lost its military role when French troops destroyed the town walls. Visitors today walk or skate along the towpath beside the water. The Elisabethsteg at the canal’s end frames a view down the water towards the Wörthersee. Nearby stands the Steinerne Fischer, a green-schist statue that once warned fishmongers to sell only fresh catch. The canal banks are lined with marbled walls and steps left from earlier centuries. In summer small boats once carried passengers, but today the waterway belongs to walkers and skaters who share the shaded path with the city’s ice-skaters in winter.