Alpbach (, ) is a town in western
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
in the state of
Tyrol
Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...
.
History
The earliest written record of the name Alpbach comes from 1150, although human settlement is known to have begun there before and around the year 1000, and a bronze axe found at Steinberger Joch (the pass leading to the Ziller Valley) in 1860 suggests that the route was already in use in the Hallstatt period.
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
was first brought to the region in the 7th and 8th centuries by Irish and Scottish monks, and the
patron saint
A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or perso ...
of the parish church is in fact
St. Oswald, a former King of
Northumbria
la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria
, common_name = Northumbria
, status = State
, status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...
.
At the beginning of the 15th century, deposits of
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
and
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
were discovered on the
Gratlspitz
The GratlspitzeBundesamt für Eich- und Vermessungswesen: Austrian map series 1:50.000AMAP Online accessed on 18 January 2011Alpenvereinskarte 34/1 Kitzbüheler Alpen, West, 2003. or Gratlspitz, is a mountain in the Austrian state of Tyrol in the ...
and
Schatzberg and in the Luegergraben. At the time, the
Fugger merchant family from Augsburg had control over mining operations in
Schwaz
Schwaz () is a city in the Austrian state of Tyrol. It is the administrative center of the Schwaz district. Schwaz is located in the lower Inn valley.
Location
Schwaz lies in the middle of the Lower Inn Valley at the foot of the Kellerjoch a ...
and
Kitzbühel, and they extended their activities to include the Alpbach valley. The Böglerhof housed the Fugger offices and was also seat of the Mining Court. In those days, Alpbach already had two inns, the Böglerhof and the Jakober Inn, where the men of the village would go to drink spirits, such as schnapps. By the middle of the 19th century, productivity at the mines had declined to the stage where they had to be closed.
Vorder-Unterberg Farm, which was built in 1636–1638 by local carpenters and was lived in until 1952, stands at the edge of the forest above the little church in Inneralpbach. Today the building is a mountain farming museum, and the exhibits include the old parlour, chapel, a combined kitchen and smokehouse, and over 800 artefacts of daily life and work.
The road leading up the valley to Alpbach was not built until 1926, and the isolated location of the village led to the development of a distinctive style of architecture and furnishings, and also enabled the local folk traditions to be preserved for much longer than in most of the valleys of the
Tyrol
Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...
.
Era of tourism
Tourists first began arriving in Alpbach at the beginning of the 20th century and by 1938 the village had accommodation for 110 visitors. Since then this figure has increased to 2500 and Alpbach now attracts some 22,000 visitors in summer and about the same in winter for an annual total of 300,000 nights.
Tourism
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...
is the main source of income for today's 2300 local residents, but there are still 105 working farms in Alpbach, the same number as a hundred years ago.
Since 1945, Alpbach has been the venue for the
Alpbach European Forum, an annual two-week conference of leading figures from the worlds of
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
,
business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...
, the
arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...
and
politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
.
[Chizzali. Tyrol: Impressions of Tyrol. (Innsbruck: Alpina Printers and Publishers), p. 39] The Forum and the participation of so many people who have shaped the thinking of their times has given Alpbach the
nickname
A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...
, "The Village Of Thinkers."
The first conference hall in Alpbach was built in the mid-1950s and named after the Austrian poet
Paula von Preradovic
Paula or PAULA may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Paula, in video game '' EarthBound''
* Paula, in ''The Larry Sanders Show''
* Paula Campbell (''EastEnders''), in 2003
Film and television
* ''Paula'' (1915 film), a s ...
, who wrote the words for the Austrian
national anthem
A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and European n ...
. The plenary hall was named after the physicist and
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
winner
Erwin Schrödinger
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (, ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist with Irish citizenship who developed a number of fundamental results in quantum theo ...
. He lies buried in the Alpbach cemetery.
At the suggestion of Alfons Moser, Mayor of Alpbach from 1945 to 1979, the Council issued a local planning law in 1953, which made the traditional style of architecture in Alpbach mandatory for all new buildings.
Over the years, Alpbach has collected many awards and distinctions. In 1975, the Austrian Public Health Institute certified that Alpbach had the cleanest and purest air in all of Austria. It was voted "Austria's Most Beautiful Village" in 1983 by a television contest organised by Austrian Television. In June 1985, the Council of Europe in Strasbourg conferred upon Alpbach the right to fly the European flag in recognition of the community's services to European Unity. In 1993, Alpbach won "The Most Beautiful Floral Village in Europe" award.
Modern Alpbach
In 1999, the new Alpbach Congress Centre was opened, together with the 55th European Forum. With its combination of exciting architecture and a minimum environmental footprint, the main architectural feature is a spiral shaped gallery with floor-to-ceiling glazing for a unique view of the spectacular mountain backdrop.
Alpbach is also a well known ski resort and its quiet pistes are well groomed and provide beginner to intermediate runs with many off pistes as well as unpatrolled route 5 which is popular with the more advanced skiers. A new lift has been opened in 2006-2007 which is a gondola and allows people to move from Inner-Alpbach to near the top of the
Wiedersberger Horn
The Wiedersberger Horn is a mountain in the Alpbachtal valley in Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federat ...
(the mountain used for all of the runs). Alpbach is also more popular with skiers than snowboarders due to the lack of extreme off piste, but is a very popular place for beginner boarders, or those looking to re-kindle their boarding passion. There is also a halfpipe for the more adventurous. There are three ski schools in the village, the first is the original Ski and Snowboardschool at Alpbach-Inneralpbach run since 1932 by Sepp Margreiter (a state-certified ski instructor and ski guide). The second is the Alpbach Active Skischule, of which the HQ of the ski school run from Alpbach, the same as the original ski school. The third is Schischule Alpbachtal, or SkiCheck. This is the most recently established ski school in the valley, founded in 2012.
References
External links
* http://www.alpbach.at
* https://web.archive.org/web/20080118173640/http://www.alpbach-aktiv.com/web/index.html
{{Authority control
Cities and towns in Kufstein District