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Most mountainous/scenic Carinthia lake town?

Hi, we're seeking personal experience/recs on which lakes in Southern Austria have the best/highest mountain views and are accessible by train (mid July) from London/Brussels?

We love the whole Alpine region around Austria/Switzerland/Northern Italy and have already enjoyed St Gilgen, Aachensee, Brienz, Halstatt, Ascona (Maggiore), Bellagio (Como) and Malcesine (Garda). We loved Ehrwald and Innichen but sadly they aren’t lakeside.

We're seeking lakeside alpine-type scenery (cows/wooden chalets) as spectacular as the towns above, combined with decent July temperatures and similar levels of tourism and size of town as these. Self catering in wooden chalet style.

Pertisau in Aachensee sadly didn't have warm/ mid 20s weather (June), so we'd like to go further South. All the other towns were perfect, but we'd like to try something new, albeit similar!

Usually we leave London by train at ca. 8am and arrive at our apartment by ca. 9pm. We'd like to find somewhere we can reach in one day.

We've never tried Carinthia. Wondering about Worthersee, but happy to take advice on what fits all criteria above! Mountains are important (so maybe Klopeinersee doesn't fit so well?)!

We love funiculars and boat trips, a good beach for adults (we don't have kids) and great Austrian restaurants!

We always do travel forum research for thoughtful recommendations - that's how we settled on most of the places above (thank you all!)

Thank you, Carinthia experts!

Posted by
1400 posts

Not an expert, but stayed here on the Millstätter See years ago: https://www.ferienhaus-moser.at/ Millstatt itself can get quite crowded with traffic on the weekends. If I am not mistaken the Tauerntunnel is closed for maintenance this year and might impact train travel. We drive, so you would have to look for other means of travel to places like Almhütten above Millstätter See (Lammersdorfer Hütte), Biosphärenpark Nockberge, Turracherhöhe, Kaiserburgbahn Bad Kleinkirchheim, the other lakes etc. Great fresh water fish for dinner, Hecht (when you can get it), Reinanke, Saibling etc. You might want to avoid European motorcycle week 2-7 September at the Faaker See. We were there in early September, but some folks were still swimming. There was some snow in higher elevations when we were there.

Just to add... We liked the Weissensee we visited for a day trip. I don't think it is what you are looking for, but we might go back for a stay there some day..