After a four-hour train ride from Vienna, we arrived in Villach, the second largest town in the southernmost Austrian region of Carinthia. Our friends have a rural property outside the town and we stayed in a self-contained chalet behind their house, complete with sleeping loft and skylight. It was fantastic! The scenery is spectacular – dense green forests, fields of tall grasses and meadow flowers, deep-blue lakes and vertiginous mountains. One morning we drove up into the foothills and then walked to a look-out point from which we could view the alps that separate Austria and Italy.

The area has been inhabited since the Bronze Age and burial mounds and lake dwellings have been excavated in the region. There are also Roman remains and churches going back to medieval times. It is well-known as a Marian pilgrimage route and there are a number of churches dedicated to Mary that pilgrims visit along the 266 km trail.

The largest lake in the area is the Worthersee. Its startling colour is due to the limestone in the surrounding hills. There is an ingeneously constructed viewpoint called the Pyramidenkogel built high up on a hill and we took the elevator up to the 10th floor to view the lake below. There were myriad boats, sailors and swimmers out on the lake on a brilliant summer’s day. Hard to believe that in the winter, there is enough ice to turn it into a skating rink, though with climate change, the skating season is becoming shorter.