Maria Saal is a hilltop pilgrimage village 10 kilometers north of Klagenfurt, and it is worth the short trip for two reasons that most visitor summaries undersell. The pilgrimage church is built directly from Roman stones quarried at Virunum, the nearby capital of Roman Noricum, with inscribed fragments and sculptural reliefs visible in the exterior walls. And the Herzogstuhl, the medieval ducal inauguration stone, records a ceremony in which new Carinthian rulers had to approach in peasant clothes and answer questions in the local Slovenian dialect before being allowed to take the seat. Half a day from Klagenfurt, easy by bus or bike, and one of Carinthia’s genuinely interesting historical layers.
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Maria Saal
The ducal inauguration stone at Maria Saal, the Herzogstuhl, is where Carinthian dukes were invested from the 9th century onward in a ceremony that was unusually participatory: a local peasant sat on the throne first, and the new duke had to answer questions in the Slovenian dialect before he could take the seat.