Austria: The Alpbachtal in Tyrol can compete with the Zillertal
Die the smallest town and the most beautiful village in Austria. Three wild water gorges and the largest open-air museum in Tyrol – there is a lot to discover and experience in the Alpbachtal am Inn.
Just an hour and a half from Munich, between the green grassy meadows of the Kitzbühel Alps and the rugged mountain peaks of the Rofan Mountains, lies one of Austria’s most pristine Alpine valleys: the Alpbachtal holiday region with ten villages, around 27,000 inhabitants and around 8,000 guest beds.
And with a tourist offer that can hardly be surpassed in terms of variety. The Kitzbühel Alps tower all around, crowned by the 2558 meter Kreuzjoch. The highest local mountain in the Alpbach valley still reaches 2425 meters into the sky: The Great Galtenberg at the end of the valley, which can be climbed on hiking trails over pastures and ridges – a beautiful destination, especially in autumn.
Despite its charms, the Alpbachtal is more tranquil than the neighboring Zillertal or other mountain regions in Austria. It was largely spared the effects of mass tourism. Nevertheless – or perhaps because of this – there is a lot to see.
The most beautiful village in Austria
Admittedly, it’s almost 40 years ago that the eponymous municipality of Alpbach was voted “Austria’s most beautiful village” in an ORF television competition. The 1983 war.
But what is long ago does not have to be gone. Because yesterday as today, the beauty of the village is characterized by a uniform wooden building style and by exuberant floral decorations during the flowering season – which has earned the place with its 2500 inhabitants the title of “most beautiful flower village in Europe”.
The strict building regulations stipulate, for example, that only the ground floor may be bricked, everything else must be made of wood. The specifications for sloping ceilings, house heights, window widths, facades and balconies are also within a narrow range. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a 200-year-old hereditary farm or a new home – wooden houses and farms in uniform alpine architecture are still Alpbach’s trademarks today.
Only the futuristic Congress Center has a different design – but it is a design masterpiece with a spiral-shaped cone of daylight, which is discreetly embedded on a mountain slope. Every year at the end of August, personalities from politics, business and culture meet here for the European Forum Alpbach to think about the future – which earned Alpbach another title: “Village of Thinkers”. This year’s guests included Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna and 2001 Nobel Prize winner in economics Joseph Stiglitz.
Water worlds created by dragons
With a length of 16.5 kilometers, the Alpbachtal is small – which does not mean that the outdoor offer is neglected. There are three narrow gorges in the holiday region of the same name, which invite to action-packed activities.
Kaiserklamm and Tiefenbachklamm offer a natural spectacle for hikers. Further down, the roaring water of the Kaiserklamm is a challenging spectacle for white water sports enthusiasts in kayaks. You can also swim: in the Brandenberger Ache, which digs through the gorge and was used for rafting until 1966.
According to legend, a dragon created the Kundler Gorge when he bit through a rock in agony. As early as 1930, the Klammstraße was so well developed and wide that at that time cars and even a taxi service ran between Kundl and the Wildschönau, the other neighboring valley.
The flat hiking trail is suitable for everyone. Children in particular are enthusiastic about the easily accessible stream bed – a natural playground with thousands of stones.
The smallest town in the Alpine Republic
From the castle ruins of Rattenberg, the view of the village of the same name is magnificent. The superlative: Rattenberg, two kilometers from the valley entrance on the Inn, is the smallest town in Austria. Just 440 people live in the almost undisturbed medieval pearl, which was once – squeezed between the river and the steep Zimmermoosberg – as a narrow point an ideal customs post.
Later, silver and copper mining became a gold mine for the market town, whose former wealth is still a sight to behold: magnificent Gothic houses, wide facades, expansive portals, decorative signs on the inns.
The town hall on the triangular market square has the most beautiful bay window, while the parish church revels in baroque and rococo. You can also climb the tower of the Augustinian monastery. Not a matter of course, because it is the only church tower in Tyrol that is open to the public.
The warmest bathing lakes in Tyrol
A dead goose is said to have clogged the underground drain of Lake Reither. The village of Reith was threatened with flooding. After the sage came avenient (that’s what foreign mineral seekers are called here), who unleashed the stopper by diving and was never seen again.
Today, the Reither See is a beautiful bathing lake in front of the Alpine backdrop. Because of its colour, it is also nicknamed the “Blue Eye of Reith”, in which the church, mountains, gardens and houses are reflected. Average water temperature in summer: 23 degrees.
The sun-kissed Reintalersee in Kramsach on the north side of the Inn brings it up to two degrees more, not many bodies of water in Tyrol can do that. But even when the mercury drops in autumn, the lakes attract people as areas for hiking and camping. The Berglsteiner See is particularly pretty in the forest.
Travel through time in Tyrol’s largest open-air museum
In the Museum of Tyrolean Farms you get an idea of how people wrote and lived in pre-industrial times: 14 farms from all corners of the country and 23 outbuildings such as saw, mill, smithy, threshing floor and chapels have been meticulously reproduced here on an ordinary hilly terrain.
Video projections on the walls of the room and kitchen also help the imagination on this journey through time: They tell of spinning flax and buttering, but also of bitter poverty and the constant worry about daily bread. Admission to the museum for families with children up to 17 years (www.museum-tb.at) costs 20 euros.
A graveyard to die for
“With the skis in the shot – that was it.” The descent on the slope can hardly be described more concisely. Similarly descriptive: “I started felling in the forest, I love the work I did. A quick death also hits me, a falling tree hits me dead straight away.”
More than 100 grave crosses with curious explanations about the causes of death can be found in the museum cemetery (www.museumsfriedhof.info) in Kramsach, which Hans Guggenberger therefore also calls the “merry cemetery”. No one is digging there, but the collection that the master stonemason brought together from all over the Alps is probably unique.
It is said to be the largest grave cross collection in Europe. The engravings are pithy in any case, because drunkards get their fat off afterwards, as do idlers and rascals, priests and hypocrites, gossips and thugs: “Under this lawn lies the drunken coppersmith Nase” or “Here lies Martin Krug, the children, woman and played the organ”.
Historical background of the stone-carved sayings: In the Alpine region it was customary until the late 19th century to decorate grave crosses and stones in such a lyrical way.
Tradition of ostrich feathers
There are still a lot of customs and traditions in the Alpbachtal. Whether spinners, costume tailors and award-winning chefs, whipped cake makers, wood sawyers or alpine dairymen – they all carry the charm of the region. But they are becoming less.
In any case, Georg Leitner from Reith is the last of his guild in Tyrol: he wins bast-like white threads from the half-meter-long quills of ostrich feathers, with which he artfully equips traditional costume belts in particular. Leitner’s job is called quill stickers.
Traditional belts, also known as satchels, used to be status symbols up to the equivalent of a horse, and even today they are very popular with men in crisp lederhosen. On average, Leitner spends a month embroidering on such a magnificent piece on his sewing horse – which, as a one-off, is also suitable as a high-priced souvenir.
Participation in the trip was supported by the Alpbachtal Tourism Association. Our standards of transparency and journalistic independence can be found at go2.as/independence
Tips and information:
Location and arrival: The Alpbachtal holiday region with ten communities on both sides of the Inn is around an hour and a half by car from Munich. You can drive into the region toll-free via Tegernsee and Achenpass or via the Inntal autobahn (toll sticker required). By train to Jenbach or Wörgl, continue with Regiobus (https://www.vvt.at/page.cfm?vpath=ueber-uns/unsere-dienstleistungen/regiobus).
Overnight stay: The double room in the “Hotel zur Post” in Alpbach, which has been there for over 200 years, costs from 154 euros per night including half board (post-alpbach.at); for the same service, the “Hotel Sonnenuhr” in Kramsach charges from 150 euros (www.hotelsonnenuhr.at);
Alpbachtal Card: The adventure card is available from the landlord for the first night. With it, attractions such as the Reintaler See, the Reither Badesee (www.alpbachtal.at/seen), the museum of Tyrolean farms (museum-tb.at) or Augustinian Museum in Rattenberg (augustinermuseum.at) can be visited free of charge.
Information: Tourism association Alpbachtal (alpbachtal.at)