Hercules and the Lindworm

My first time with Airbnb today. I fly from Klagenfurt to Hamburg very early tomorrow morning, and I was thinking I'd have to spend the night at the main train station, as the airport isn't 24 hours and no hostels were available at all, but Airbnb came to the rescue. It's been a luxury being able to cook for myself and use the washing machine!

The bus journey from Graz this morning took two hours; I split that time between gazing out of the window at the often magnificent scenery and reading a very interesting travel book about Welsh-speaking communities around the world.

Klagenfurt is lovely, like a mini Graz.

Unlike Graz, however, it has intriguing statues of a lindworm and Hercules in the main square. The former, part of a fountain, dates from 1590 and the latter from 1633. This represents an old German tale from the 13th century of a lindworm near Klagenfurt. An interesting reminder to me that these tales of 'Worms' (really, dragons or serpents), appear in local folklore across Germanic and Scandinavian Europe, not just the UK.

Apparently the head of the statue was modelled on the skull of a woolly rhinoceros found in a quarry in 1335.