Lienz

Lienz sits where the Isel joins the Drau under the north face of the Lienz Dolomites, and its situation is a political artefact: when South Tyrol went to Italy in 1919, East Tyrol was left attached to the rest of the province only through Italian territory, so it is an exclave reached from the rest of Austria via Carinthia or the Felbertauern tunnel. The town has a long arcaded main square, a Gothic parish church with frescoes and the tombs of the counts of Görz, and Schloss Bruck above it, their seat, now the town museum with a large holding of Albin Egger-Lienz, the painter born nearby whose hard, monumental peasant and war subjects are among the strongest Austrian painting of the period. Aguntum, a Roman town, is excavated a few kilometres east.

History

People have lived here since the Bronze Age, around 2000 BC, Celtic miners from about 300 BC, and under Emperor Claudius the Romans built the municipium of Aguntum nearby, an early Christian bishop's seat in the 5th century that decayed in the fighting between Slavs and Bavarians around 600. Lienz is first named, as Luenzina, around 1030, the Meinhardiner counts, who called themselves Counts of Görz from about 1127, made it their residence, and the market on the trade route from Friuli to Salzburg received town rights on 25 February 1242; the counts finished Schloss Bruck in 1278, and when their line died out in 1500 their lands passed to Maximilian I and into Tyrol (Wikipedia, Lienz).

Highlights

• An exclave town - East Tyrol cut from the rest of the province in 1919.
• Schloss Bruck - the counts' seat, now the museum with the Egger-Lienz collection.
• The Lienz Dolomites - the limestone wall rising directly south of the town.
• Roman Aguntum - the excavated town a few kilometres east.

When to go

June to September for the mountains; winter for skiing. A day.

Things to know

Getting here from the rest of Austria is slow - via Carinthia or a tolled tunnel. The museum has seasonal hours. Egger-Lienz's war paintings are bleak and were contentious in his lifetime.

Nearby

Aguntum is east; the Hohe Tauern and Kals are north; Italy is south.

Key facts