The Stadtpfarrkirche St. Jakob (Parish Church of St James) is Villach's most prominent building, its white Gothic tower rising above the Hauptplatz and visible from miles around. The church dates from the 14th century and contains late Gothic and baroque elements accumulated through centuries of reconstruction and embellishment. The interior is spacious and relatively restrained by Austrian church standards, with a notable carved stone pulpit and a series of chapels along the nave.
The tower is open to visitors and the climb is worth it. From the top you have an unobstructed panorama over the old town, the Drau valley, and the surrounding mountains — on clear days the peaks of the Karawanken range along the Slovenian border are sharp on the horizon. The view gives an immediate sense of why Villach has always been a transit city: the valley corridors running south towards Italy and southeast towards Slovenia are plainly visible from up here.