Difference between revisions of "Villach"

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'''Villach''' (''Beljak'' in Slovenian, ''Villaco'' in Italian) is a city in [[Austria]] near the border to [[Italy]] and [[Slovenia]]. It is an important spot on the direct connection between [[Germany]] and [[Slovenia]] and [[Croatia]]. Every year numerous people that go for holidays to the Croatian coast pass here.
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'''Villach''' (''Beljak'' in Slovenian, ''Villaco'' in Italian) is a city in [[Austria]] near the border to [[Italy]] and [[Slovenia]]. It is an important spot on the direct connection between [[Germany]] and Slovenia respectively [[Croatia]]. Every year numerous people that go for holidays to the Croatian coast pass here.
  
 
== Hitchhiking out ==
 
== Hitchhiking out ==

Revision as of 22:56, 2 August 2016

Villach
<map lat="46.61037721605049" lng="13.855957031249826" zoom="11" />
Information
Country:
Flag of Austria
Austria
State: Carinthia
Population: 60.000
Licence plate: VI
Major roads: A 2 A 10 A 11 E 55 E 61 E 66
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Villach (Beljak in Slovenian, Villaco in Italian) is a city in Austria near the border to Italy and Slovenia. It is an important spot on the direct connection between Germany and Slovenia respectively Croatia. Every year numerous people that go for holidays to the Croatian coast pass here.

Hitchhiking out

In Villach there is a big motorway intersection (Knoten Villach in German). You can go to Italy via the A 2, to Slovenia via the A 11, north towards Salzburg via the A 10 and east towards Vienna via the A 2.

South towards Slovenia, Ljubljana A 11 E 61

To the south there is a motorway going through the Karawanken Tunnel over to Jesenice (Aßling in German) in Slovenia. Apart from that there is also the old road over the pass.

One possibility is catching a ride towards Salzburg to the next petrol station in Feistritz. Plenty of cars stopping there in both directions (north and south).

But the best is to go from the city centre almost directly to the east along Faakersee-Bundesstrasse (Ludwig Walter Strasse, then Maria Gailer Strasse) over the river and before the fork to the Süd-Autobahn there is a bus station where you can hitchhike and cars can stop and pick you up.

North towards Salzburg, Germany A 10 E 55

To the north there is the A 10 motorway going to Salzburg and Germany.

East towards Graz, Vienna & Hungary A 2 E 66

There is the A 2 motorway going east towards Graz, Vienna and Hungary. Try to find a ride which takes you to the service station between Villach and Klagenfurt. There are a lot of rides going in all directions from there.

Southwest towards Udine, Venice & Italy A 2 E 55

There is the A 2 motorway going southwest towards Udine, Venice and Italy in general. Just before the border there is a big service station.

Personal experiences

During the Abgefahren hitchhiking race 2010 some teams had major problems getting away from Villach to Slovenia and from Rasthof Feistritz in particular. Also, the on-ramp Faakersee didn't work well for them. The Villach experience was so traumatizing for some of the teams that they made the new figure of speech "to have a Villach" (German "einen Villach haben") - if you had a very unlucky or bad day - and now trying to establish this phrase among the hitchhikers jargon.

This was also confirmed on the 2009 University of Sheffield's 1500 mile hitch 'Bummit to Zadar'. Of the three hundred hitch-hikers an unprecedented (for Bummit) sixty two people descended on the bottle neck in Villach during one single night. The ever worsening weather of the mountainous region caused all of the participants to take shelter in the central train station and try and 'blag' a train. The four am train the next day was not happy to receive such an amount of people after 12 hours of being stuck in a wet train station and not wanting to pay. The thought of being stuck in Villach often conjures up the idea of being stuck in the 'worst place humanly possible for a hitch-hiker, with only routes in and almost none going out' (Bummit 2010/2011).

During the Bummit's of 2010 and 2011 there has been much conversation of having a 'Villach' or 'Villach moment' which absolutely echoes the Abgefahren hitch-hike the year after.

Prino had a similar bad experience in 1985, trying to get from Villach to Yugoslavia, but eventually, after a 4:24 wait, settling for a ride to Klagenfurt.

Other useful information

Internet

There is free Wi-Fi available at the main railway station, as well as in the shopping mall Atrium.