Wildschönau

Wildschönau is a 24 km long high valley with four villages: Niederau, Oberau, Auffach and Thierbach. For a long time, mining was the main source of income in this area, while today tourism and pastoral economy prevail. There are also some famous citizens, including the race-car driver Norbert Siedler and Andreas Thaler (1883-1939), agricultural minister and founder of Treze Tílias (Dreizehnlinden, in German), a Tyrolean village in Brazil.

According to legend, the area was once covered by a lake, on the shores of which a dragon lived. Before a farmer killed it, the dragon destroyed the rock that formed the lake’s boundary. As a result, the water flowed through the newly created gorge into the Inn Valley, opening up the high valley of the Wildschönau. This Kundl Gorge, one of the most beautiful canyons of Austria, can be experienced.

The Wildschönau is an active valley: hundreds of km of hiking trails and MTB routes snake their way through the landscape, reaching as far as up to Mt. Schatzberg, which houses the mighty Ski Jewel Alpbachtal Wildschönau in winter. If you are interested in culture and in the life of mountain farmers, then the 1st Tyrolean Wood Museum and the Mountain Farmers' Museum invite you to take a look. The latter is also the venue for a handicraft market in summer, where you may try the 'Wildschönauer Krautinger', a schnapps and old domestic remedy made of the white turnip.