Address

Pörtschach

GPS

46.629930337779, 14.144682884216

Pörtschach East Tour

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Address

Pörtschach

GPS

46.629930337779, 14.144682884216

Level of difficulty 2 |  Gastronomy 3 |  Length 4.2 km |  Time 1 - 1.5 hours

The climatic health resort of Pörtschach am Wörthersee is popular with paddlers due to the Caribbean colors along its peninsula. The eastern bay also offers sightseeing by the water, as countless old villas line the comfortably navigable shore.

General information

Navigation rules

Please give way to passenger ships, boats and bathers!

Paddling is prohibited under the pedestrian bridge that leads to the Flower Island (Blumeninsel). Buoys with the words ‘Stop SUP’ clearly indicate the ban. You should not enter the Flower Island from the water. As it is mainly made up of reeds, getting on the island is difficult anyway.

The Capuchin Island (Kapuzinerinsel) off Pörtschach is a nature reserve and as such may not be entered.

Dangers and risks

Caution is advised on the way to the water, as the boards should not obstruct pedestrians, cyclists or motorists along the narrow streets and the promenade. When crossing, always make sure that no one is coming from behind!

On nice summer days, there are lots of people in the water along the freely accessible shores of the peninsula, which is why you shouldn't paddle too close to the shore. The turquoise strip is too shallow for SUPing anyway.

The east side of Capuchin Island is also very busy on nice days, when all kinds of boats and paddle boards anchor there and people stand in the middle of the lake, splashing around in the shallow water.

If you choose to start the tour at the picture frame, you will walk over slippery tree roots and about half a meter down into the water. There is a slight risk of slipping here, so you can alternatively go into the water a little further along the peninsula promenade.

From ten o'clock, there is extremely heavy traffic on the water in the summer. The motorboats travelling back and forth at high speed in front of Pörtschach are particularly dangerous. In the area of ​​the Peter Alexander Pier, make sure you are not blocking the way of any liners!

The heavy traffic naturally leads to sometimes strong waves, which almost feel like at sea. Therefore, do not paddle too close to the peninsula, as strong boat waves can quickly push SUPs to the shallow shore.

Directions

If you are coming from the east on the A2 southern motorway, take the Pörtschach Ost motorway exit and follow the signposted road into town. If you are coming from the west, the best way to get there by car is to take the Pörtschach West motorway exit.

We also recommend taking a leisurely journey along the B 83 (Kärntner Straße) along the northern shore. You will pass countless small municipalities on Lake Wörthersee and get a taste of its romantic bays.

Pörtschach is also very easy to reach by train, especially since trains from the east and west stop in the seaside resort several times an hour. From the train station you then walk 800 m (10 minutes) to the start of the tour at the picture frame on the peninsula.

National and international bus, train and flight connections can be found via the comparison portals Omio, Busbud as well as RailEurope. If you arrive by plane, you will either land in Klagenfurt or Ljubljana – the closest airports in the region.

Parking

You can park for free at the Park & Ride car park near the train station. This car park is very popular and full during the summer.

Right next to it, along the main road, there is a paid parking lot with relatively little space to prepare the boards (when fully occupied).

Not far from the peninsula promenade there is another paid parking lot, which also offers little space for inflating the SUPs when it is full. If you park your car here you can get your board ready on the Wahliss Meadow before continuing down to the tour start on the peninsula.

Swimming

With water temperatures of up to 28° C, Lake Wörthersee is probably the most popular bathtub in the state. That's why it's very heavily built up, but also has a number of free lake accesses. The Metnitz Beach in Klagenfurt, the Edelweis outdoor pools in Pörtschach, the Teixlbucht Bay near Maria Wörth and the free accesses to the lake in Krumpendorf (Kurpark, Berthastraße, Strandweg among others) are worth mentioning. However, if you are looking for more infrastructure, you are spoiled for choice with the countless bathing beaches around the lake.

In Pörtschach you either have a private lake access with your holiday accommodation or you can go to the public pool (Promendadenbad, Werzers Badehaus). However, many people also go to the free lake accesses in the surrounding area. The shore is shallow, especially on the peninsula, and the earthy ground is pleasant even for walking barefoot. Here also promenaders go swimming, although signs indicate that swimming is prohibited.

Promenadenbad Pörtschach
Blumenpromenade 24, 9210 Pörtschach
Phone +43 (0)4272 2435

Das Badehaus
Werzerpromenade 8, 9210 Pörtschach
Phone +43 (0)4272 22 31 138

Free lake access in and around Pörtschach can be found here:

Sallacher Strandbad
Freibad Prischitz
Picture frame / peninsula
Peninsula pormenade
Edelweissbad

Tour

From the peninsula turn right to the Flower Island, then continue to the Capuchin Island and from there across the lake to the north into Pörtschach's eastern bay.

Length

4.2 km

Time

1 - 1.5 hours

Start and landing

On the eastern shore of the peninsula.

SUP rental

Rent a SUP Pörtschach
(at the ice cream parlor Temmel Eis or the bar WunderBar on request)
Johannes-Brahms-Promenade, 9210 Pörtschach
Phone +43 (0)660 4715996

SUP2Gether
(in the public bath Promenadenbad Pörtschach)
Blumenpromenade 24, 9210 Pörtschach
Phone +43 (0)4272 2435

Villas and waves

Alongside Velden, Pörtschach is probably the most exclusive place on Lake Wörthersee, and as such it has a number of attractions to offer stand-up paddlers. While the climatic health resort is in a deep sleep between autumn and spring, it awakens like a phoenix from the ashes in early summer and its clear, Caribbean-like shores are a real invitation to paddle. The peninsula divides the SUP area around Pörtschach into a western and an eastern bay, with the latter being the far more interesting one.

The western shore of the peninsula is not allowed to be paddeled in the area of ​​the public pool (Promenadebad) because the swimming area is strictly fenced off. The proportion of natural shore sections is also smaller in the west. These restrictions do not apply in the eastern bay, which is why we will tackle it today.

If you're lucky, you'll find a parking space not far from the shore, otherwise you'll have to walk a little longer to get to the water. There are several water accesses along the peninsula promenade, of which the first one by the large picture frame is the most inconvenient option. But we can hardly wait to get out onto the enchanting water and find a narrow passage through the reeds, just below the picture frame.

It's a little tricky here, as we have to go down to the water over slippery roots. You need to be sure-footed, but you don't need that a little further on in the small bay or at the end of the peninsula. There you walk over the flat sandy shore and into the lake.

We first glide through the loosely distributed reeds and paddle to the right into the small bay. A mix of floodplain landscape, lake and bay opens up before us. Walkers from the promenade keep peeking through the dense vegetation and we paddle along the bank until we turn sharply to the right at the tip of the peninsula.

From here on, it is advisable to stay at least 20 m away from the bank, as the water is very shallow and the first waves are already pushing towards the land. From now on, at least near the bank, there is a Caribbean feeling, as the deep blue of the lake turns into a green-turquoise color, which finally ends in almost white water right on the shore.

Understandably, a lot of people are in the lake enjoying the extremely warm water. We pass a wedding party at the pavilion and head over to the Peter Alexander Pier. It is dedicated to the popular Austrian entertainer and film actor Peter Alexander and is the pier for the passenger liners. Therefore, please always exercise particular caution and foresight here!

It would actually be nice to paddle under the pedestrian bridge between the peninsula and the Flower Island. Unfortunately, this is prohibited, which is easy to see from the buoys in front of it. They are decorated with the words "SUP Stop" printed on them, which every international holidaymaker should be able to understand.

So we paddle a little further along the reedy Flower Island and watch the activity in the water. Wherever we look, there are bathers enjoying themselves in the water, young people creatively jumping from their SUPs as well as small boats of all types anchored near the shore. Everyone around us is just relaxed and having fun.

As soon as we turn left and leave the turquoise band of the Flower Island, the relaxation disappears a little, because the waves increase in line with the number of motor and electric boats speeding across the lake. But our crossing to the small Capuchin Island is still an entertaining wave ride after all.

In front of and above us, the Mt. Pyramidenkogel observation tower, currently the highest wooden structure in the world, watches over us. Along the 500 m long crossing, you should stop and pause every now and then, because here you are almost exactly in the middle of Lake Wörthersee. The town of Velden can be seen far to the west. Towards the east, the lake bends, meaning that the view inevitably ends at Sekirn on the south bank.

We realize that we are on the so-called Austrian Riviera once we reach the small Capuchin Island, which is a nature reserve. A few motorboats are anchored off the turquoise western shore of the islet and are lifted and shaken by the immense boat waves almost as much as we are on our dainty SUPs. We have to be careful not to be driven too close to the boats and bump into them unintentionally. So we let ourselves drift in the water at a safe distance before heading to the other side of this reed island.

Here we have a rare experience, because one can stand in the middle of the lake and touch the ground. Some bathers take advantage of this and play frisbee in groups of three, with the water only reaching up to their shoulders. The seagulls on the wooden border of the protected area do not seem particularly bothered by this scenery. Loud music blares from a moored boat and somehow the scene seems like a summer party in and on the water. The large lake offers a wide range of different possibilities for special experiences due to its incredible number of natural features.

There are large and small bays, deep and shallow banks, which are sometimes undeveloped and untouched, but often house cute holiday homes or impressive villas. Attentive observers will also discover dreamy boat docks and long jetties, cool beach bars and plenty of water sports on offer. Lake Wörthersee is probably the master of Austria's lakes, which can perfectly play all of these facets on its keyboard like hardly any other inland water.

Later we experience a contrast when we enter Pörtschach's eastern bay, where the waves of the main traffic route between Klagenfurt and Velden subside and paddling becomes more leisurely. But this also applies to the entire ambience, because dozens of small lakeside cottages and holiday pensions are located next to each other and the tumultuousness is slowly diluted by the omnipresent idleness. If they were not built by the shore, then beautiful Art Nouveau villas enrich the background of the shoreline.

We pass the small Edelweissbad, another free beach. However, it is next to the main road and the path to it is quite narrow - hardly tolerable with a SUP board in your hands. But this problem does not exist by the water. We have enough space between the other paddlers, who are well spread out here, and we slowly flow back to the peninsula.

Because it is so beautiful, we land on the Caribbean beach of the peninsula and sit in the warm water. You could stay here for hours and watch the hustle and bustle in and around the water. After all, Lake Wörthersee is truly a lake for all the senses.

Alternatives: Pörtschach also offers paddlers its western bay, but it is more built up and the landscape is less varied. Longer tours lead to both ends of the lake, although you should plan several hours to Klagenfurt (8.4 km) and Velden (8 km)

Find more SUP tours on Carinthian lakes in the SUP Guide Carinthia.

Difficulty

2

Gastronomy

3

Length

4,2

Time

1 – 1,5

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