Alpbach

Alpbach sits at about a thousand metres in a side valley off the Inn, and it looks the way it does because of a decision: from the 1950s the village imposed building rules requiring new construction to follow the local vernacular in timber, with prescribed proportions, balconies and roof pitches, and it has held to them, so the whole settlement including the modern buildings reads as one thing. It won a European village competition on that basis and is routinely called the most beautiful village in Austria, which is a claim built by policy rather than accident. Since 1945 it has hosted the European Forum Alpbach each August, a conference bringing politicians, academics and students together, held in a purpose-built congress centre dug into the hillside so as not to break the skyline.

History

People settled here around the year 1000, the name is first written in 1150, and a bronze axe found on the Steinberger Joch in 1860 suggests the pass to the Ziller valley was used in the Hallstatt period; the parish church is dedicated to St. Oswald, a king of Northumbria. In the early 15th century copper and silver were found on the Gratlspitz and Schatzberg, the Fugger family of Augsburg extended their mining into the valley, with offices and a mining court at the Böglerhof, and the mines worked until the middle of the 19th century. The road up the valley was built only in 1926, which kept its own style of building and its customs alive longer than elsewhere in Tyrol; the first tourists came early in the 20th century, by 1938 there were beds for 110 visitors, and since 1945 the village has hosted the European Forum Alpbach (Wikipedia, Alpbach).

What's there

• Enforced vernacular building - all new construction in local timber style since the 1950s.
• A congress centre in the hill - dug in so it does not break the village skyline.
• The European Forum - the August conference running since 1945.
• A ski and walking valley - lifts linked with the Wildschönau since 2012.

When to go

June to September for walking; August for the forum; winter for skiing. A day.

Practical notes

Forum weeks fill the village and accommodation entirely. The uniformity of the building style strikes some visitors as staged. It is a resort valley, priced accordingly.

Nearby

Rattenberg is down the valley; the Zillertal is west.

Key facts