In the ninth C. the present town of Attersee (494m/1,620ft, pop. 1,200) was the site of a royal castle; in the 13th C. a palace was built there for the Archbishop of Salzburg. Attersee's two churches are well worth a visit.
The parish and pilgrimage church of Maria Attersee on the Kirchberg in Attersee grew out of the former palace chapel. Originally Gothic in style, it was converted to the Baroque between 1722-28 by Jakob Pawanger and Josef Mathias Götz from Passau, at the request of Ferdinand Count of Khevenhüller. The statue of the Madonna on the high altar, those of St Peter and St Stephen, as well as the high-relief of the Magi are all Gothic survivals.
A feature of Attersee is the Late Gothic church of St Laurence in the Abtsdorf district of the town. The high altar, the side altars and the pulpit were the work of Meinrad Guggenbichler(C. 1700).
The evangelical parish church, the old church of St Martin at the foot of the Kirchberg in Attersee, was rebuilt in the late 15th C., the Neo-Gothic altar and the pulpit being added in the 19th C.
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