KUFSTEIN, THE OLDEST TRACES OF HABITATION IN TYROL

Joseph contemplates Kufstein and its fortress

Today, Claire Fontaine and her friends are visiting Kufstein, one of the most beautiful places of Tyrol.  

Joseph de Ca'th Lon has contemplated incredible views of the Alps, Tina Picotes has bought some kilos of chocolate and Tonyi Tamaki has tasted incredible local beer while The Grandma has studying a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 66 & Checkpoint 11).

More information: Be with Adjectives and Prepositions

Kufstein is a town in the Austrian state of Tyrol, the administrative seat of Kufstein District. With a population of about 18,400, it is the second largest Tyrolean town after the state capital Innsbruck. The greatest landmark is Kufstein Fortress, first mentioned in the 13th century.

It is located in the Tyrolean Unterland region on the river Inn, at the confluence with its Weißache and Kaiserbach tributaries, near the border to Bavaria, Germany. The municipal area stretches along the Lower Inn Valley between the Brandenberg Alps in the northwest and the Kaiser Mountains in the southeast.

The Kufstein Fortress

The remote Kaisertal until recently was the last settled valley in Austria without transport connections, prior to the construction of a tunnel road from Kufstein to neighbouring Ebbs in 2006. North of the town, the Inn river leaves the Northern Limestone Alps and enters the Bavarian Alpine Foreland.

The town area comprises several small lakes, such as Pfrillsee, Längsee, and Hechtsee; Egelsee and Maistaller Lacke are protected nature reserves. The municipal arrangement comprises the cadastral communities of Kufstein, Mosbach and Thierberg; the town itself is divided into five quarters (Zentrum, Sparchen, Weissach, Endach, and Zell).

Archaeological findings in the Tischofer Cave in Kaisertal denote a settlement of the area more than 30,000 years ago, the oldest traces of human habitation in Tyrol. 

More information: Kufstein

Incorporated into the Roman Empire in 15 BC, the Inn river formed the border between the Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum.

A church at Caofstein was first mentioned in a 788 deed issued by Bishop Arno of Salzburg. At that time, the Lower Inn Valley was part of the Bavarian realm under the Agilolfing duke Tassilo III, who was deposed by Charlemagne and replaced by Prefect Gerold. The Fortress is first documented in 1205 as a possession of the Bishop of Regensburg and the Duke of Bavaria.

The Grandma & Claire are arriving to the hotel

In the early 14th century, the Wittelsbach emperor Louis IV, also Bavarian duke, vested the Kufstein citizens with rights of jurisdiction.

Kufstein passed to the County of Tyrol in 1342, when it was a wedding gift to Countess Margaret from her husband, Emperor Louis's son Louis the Brandenburger. However, it fell back to Bavaria upon Margaret's death in 1369. Duke Stephen III of Bavaria granted Kufstein city status in 1393, due to its prominence as a trading and docking point on the Inn River. From 1415 onwards, his son and successor Duke Louis VII had the Fortress largely rebuilt and expanded.

The possession of the strategically important Kufstein border fortress remained disputed. In 1504, the Habsburg emperor Maximilian I took the opportunity of the War of the Succession of Landshut within the Bavarian Wittelsbach dynasty: his Austrian forces laid siege to the town, and at the Imperial Diet in Cologne the next year, the emperor resolved upon the cession of the Kufstein territories to the Habsburg lands of Tyrol. Maximilian had the prominent Kaiserturm tower of the fortress erected, which was finished in 1522.

More information: Festung Kufstein

During the War of the Spanish Succession, the castle was again besieged by Bavarian troops under Elector Maximilian II Emanuel in 1703, nevertheless the Austrian domains were confirmed by the Treaty of Ilbersheim the next year. After the War of the Third Coalition, Kufstein once again was awarded to the newly established Kingdom of Bavaria in the 1805 Peace of Pressburg and the Tyrolean Rebellion of 1809 was crushed by the Bavarian Army. Finally in 1813/14 it passed to the Austrian Empire.

In the 19th century, Kufstein Fortress was turned into a bastille for political prisoners, such as the Hungarian outlaw Sándor Rózsa, who spent several years here before he was finally pardonned in 1868. The town's economic development was decisively promoted by the opening of the Lower Inn Valley Railway line in 1858.

In the late days of World War II the historic town centre suffered from Allied bombing. After the war, Kufstein was occupied by French and US forces; it was the site of a French sector United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration Displaced Persons camp.

More information: Tyrol

 When you're six years old, you do not appreciate

that you're living in the Alps.

Ahna O'Reilly

THE GOLDENES DACHL & THE THREE WISE MEN LEGEND

The Grandma enters in The Goldenes Dachl Museum

Today, The Grandma and her friends are still in Innsbruck. She has wanted to stay another day in this city that she loves so much. 

They have visited The Goldenes Dachl, one of the most popular places of the city and they have been astonished by its wonderful golden roof.

Before visiting the Old Town of Innsbruck, aka Altstadt, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 65).

More information: Verbs with Prepositions, Gerund or Infinitive

The Goldenes Dachl is a landmark structure located in the Old Town, Altstadt, section of Innsbruck. It is considered the city's most famous symbol. Completed in 1500, the roof was decorated with 2,657 fire-gilded copper tiles for Emperor Maximilian I to mark his wedding to Bianca Maria Sforza. The Emperor and his wife used the balcony to observe festivals, tournaments, and other events that took place in the square below.

The entire oriel is decorated in sculpted reliefs and mural paintings. The first-floor balustrade is adorned with eight sculpted coats of arms, six facing the square and two flanking panels, representing Maximilian's territories. Above the coats of arms are frescoes by Jörg Kölderer, painted in 1500, showing two knights bearing heraldic flags representing the Holy Roman Empire and Tyrol.

Visiting the Goldenes Dachl

The second-floor balustrade is decorated in eight sculpted reliefs, six facing the square and two flanking panels, depicting various images associated with Maximilian's life.

The two central reliefs show Maximilian. The one on the left shows the Emperor with his second wife Bianca Maria Sforza on the left holding an apple, and his beloved first wife Maria of Burgundy on the right. The other central relief shows the Emperor with his court jester and his chancellor.

The flanking reliefs show Moorish dancers engaged in acrobatic and grotesque dancing -a common form of popular entertainment of that time. The dancing shown in these outer reliefs is of Andalusian origin.

The frescoes that adorn the interior of the loggia were also painted by Jörg Kölderer and show scenes from the aristocratic life of that time. All of the decorations on the current structure are carefully executed replicas. The original reliefs are on permanent display in the Tyrolean State Museum, known as the Ferdinandeum.

More information: Innsbruck

The building that bears the Goldenes Dachl was constructed by Archduke Friedrich IV in the early fifteenth century as the residence of the Tyrolean sovereigns. Emperor Maximilian I commissioned the loggia in 1493 from Nikolaus Turing the Elder, the Innsbruck court builder, at the time of his marriage to Bianca Maria Sforza. It was Turing who designed and built the golden roof with its 2,657 fire-gilded copper tiles.

The Goldenes Dachl was designed to serve as a royal box where the Emperor and his imperial entourage could sit in state and enjoy festivals, tournaments, and other events that took place in the square below. The Goldenes Dachl was built in honor of Maximilian's marriage to Bianca Maria Sforza of Milan. Not wishing to alienate the allies gained by his first marriage, to Maria of Burgundy, he had an image of himself between the two women painted on his balcony.

Since January 2003, the Goldenes Dachl has housed the International Alpine Convention's Office. The Alpine Convention is a coalition of eight Alpine Countries united by a shared commitment to sustainable development in the European Alps. A museum, the Maximilianum, is also contained in the building as well as the Innsbruck City Archives.

More information: Innsbruck

After visiting this amazing house, they have had a typical Tyrolian breakfast in front of the Goldenes Dachl and The Grandma has been reading some interesting BBC's information about the Three Kings, three  mysterious wise men who are very important in the Christian religion, that is the main one in Austria where the 73,6% practice it. Here it is...

The Three Wise Men in a Medieval painting

Thirty years ago there were 50,000 Christians in south-eastern Turkey speaking a dialect of Aramaic -the language of Christ. Now there are 2,500. Talking to one of them, the BBC's Jeremy Bristow learned that instead of Three Kings, there might actually have been 12.

Fresh out of his farm clothes, Habib the mayor now sits at his table in a crisply ironed shirt. He's a gentle, almost diffident man in his early 50s, but he can form his letters with a calm assurance. He's the custodian of a dying language.

Dipping his pen into the inkwell, he momentarily pauses, then starts to write. The broad nib moves right to left in neat black flicks and dashes, some vertical, some slanted, some horizontal, often with a deft flourish at the end. Sometimes Habib fashions a triangle, sometimes a circle, sometimes he adorns the shapes with a dot, indicating a vowel.

The script that is emerging before me looks like Arabic. It's not… or not quite. It's Syriac, a dialect of ancient Aramaic.

More information: Bible Study Tools

"Look, let me show you," he says. "This letter is Olaf in our script, Alef in Arabic. See here, this letter is Lomad, it resembles Lam in Arabic. And He is Ha. Written together, they spell Aloho in Aramaic, the equivalent of Allah in Arabic. So many words from the Koran come from Aramaic."

For 1,000 years, Aramaic was written and spoken right across Middle East. It was the language spoken by Jesus and his followers. The Jewish holy book, the Talmud, was written in Aramaic, and scholars say Arabic script is derived from it. But now, if Aramaic was an animal species, it would be declared critically endangered.

Habib, a Syriac Christian, is one of just 2,500 Syriacs who still live in this remote part of south-east Turkey. They call this region, their homeland, Tur Abdin. In Aramaic this means the Mount of the Servants of God.

Basilica San Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna

The Biblical source of the story of the wise men is the gospel of Matthew-Matthew doesn't say how many there were, he just says they brought three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

St Jacob refers to 12 kings.

Michael the Syrian (St Michael the Great) names 11 kings: Dahdandur, son of Artaban; Shuf, son of Gudfar; Arshak, son of Mahduq; Zarwand, son of Warwadud; Aryo, son of Kasro; Artahshasht, son of Hamit; Ashtanbuzan, son of Shishron; Mahduq, son of Hoham; Ahshiresh, son of Sahban; Sardanh, son of Baldan; Marduk, son of Bel.

Melchior, Balthasar and Caspar belong to a different tradition.

All of the stories are thought likely to be legends.

More information: Christianity Today

Once upon a time there was a flourishing Christian civilisation here. The landscape boasts hundreds of monasteries and churches -many now in ruins, many surmounted by mosques.

Take for example, Habib's village of Hah, where he's mayor, or Anitli as it is known in Turkish. A mere 20 Syriac families now live among the ruins of what was once a cathedral city with thousands of houses. Their homes are built among the remains of great buildings. Crumbling walls and giant archways loom above them.

Six hundred years ago Hah was sacked by the armies of Timur the Lame, better known in English history as Tamberlaine. This was just one catastrophe in a long history of intermittent persecutions and occasional acts of terror that religious minorities like the Syriacs have had to endure in this part of the Middle East.

The Three Wise Men in an Oriental painting

Habib's family have survived by holding out in their fortress-like farmhouse that still stands above the village. Five other related families also live within this bastion, towering walls on the outside, farmyards within.

Habib says his family, the Beth Henno, have been here since records began. But so many Syriac Christians have left for Istanbul, for Sweden, Germany, Australia. In the last three decades they've been caught up in the brutal war between the Turkish state and the Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK. They've been threatened and driven out by both sides. In the 1980s 50,000 lived in Tur Abdin, now less than 5% of that number remain.

Habib and his wife, Leman, are doing their best to boost the numbers, raising seven children on their farm.

We walk down through the village, in the shadow of crumbling towers and gaping vaults, entering the courtyard of the Church of the Yoldath Aloho, the Mother of God. As I enter the nave I know I am standing in history. Is that the smell of ancient cement, or is it rotting plaster?

More information: National Geographic

The walls and niches are covered in a riot of carved decorations covering arches that support a soaring octagonal dome. It's here that Habib and the villagers still come to chant the hymns of Saint Ephraim, as their ancestors have done since the Church was built, nearly 1,500 years ago.

They will be here at Christmas. Habib tells me a local legend. Just over 2,000 years ago an auspicious star appeared in the night sky. Twelve kings from the East gathered here at Hah. A select three went on to Bethlehem bearing gifts to greet the newborn Christ. A grateful Mary, mother of God, gave them a piece of the baby's swaddling clothes. When the three kings returned to Hah, the holy baby-wrap turned to gold. Awed by this miracle, the Kings founded this church.

As we walk back in to the courtyard, I hear the village children reciting, Aramaic in class. I ask Habib, what the future is for the Syriac community here in Tur Abdin, the Mount of the worshipers of God. "We won't give up,'' he says. "But I fear, in the end, we are too few."

More information: ABC News

How wonderful to know that Christianity is more than a padded 

pew or a dim cathedral, but that it is a real, living, 

daily experience which goes on from grace to grace.

Jim Elliot

INNSBRUCK, THE HEART OF TYROL IN THE INN VALLEY

The Grandma visits Innsbruck

Today, The Grandma and her friends are visiting Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol. The Grandma is very happy for returning to this beautiful city again because she has wonderful memories of it. She loves Tyrol and she has visited this part of Europe as times as she has had the opportunity.

The Grandma, Joseph de Ca'th Lon, Tina Picotes and Claire Fontaine are waiting for the arrival of Tonyi Tamaki, the last member of the group. All of them are going to enjoy the last part of their Austrian tour together.

Meanwhile the friends are waiting for Tonyi, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 64).

More information: Make, Do, Go (Phrasal Verbs)

Innsbruck is the capital city of Tyrol in western Austria and the fifth-largest city in Austria. It is in the Inn valley, at its junction with the Wipp valley, which provides access to the Brenner Pass some 30 km to the south.

Located in the broad valley between high mountains, the so-called North Chain in the Karwendel Alps (Hafelekarspitze, 2,334 metres) to the north, and the Patscherkofel (2,246 m) and Serles (2,718 m) to the south.

Innsbruck is an internationally renowned winter sports centre, and hosted the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics as well as the 1984 and 1988 Winter Paralympics. Innsbruck also hosted the first Winter Youth Olympics in 2012. The name translates as Inn bridge.

More information: Innsbruck

The earliest traces suggest initial inhabitation in the early Stone Age. Surviving pre-Roman place names show that the area has been populated continuously. In the 4th century the Romans established the army station Veldidena, the name survives in today's urban district Wilten, at Oenipons (Innsbruck), to protect the economically important commercial road from Verona-Brenner-Augsburg in their province of Raetia. 

Tonyi Tamaki arrives to Innsbruck, Tyrol

The first mention of Innsbruck dates back to the name Oeni Pontum or Oeni Pons which is Latin for bridge (pons) over the Inn (Oenus), which was an important crossing point over the Inn river.

The Counts of Andechs acquired the town in 1180. In 1248 the town passed into the hands of the Counts of Tyrol. The city's arms show a bird's-eye view of the Inn bridge, a design used since 1267. The route over the Brenner Pass was then a major transport and communications link between the north and the south of Europe, and the easiest route across the Alps. It was part of the Via Imperii, a medieval imperial road under special protection of the king. The revenues generated by serving as a transit station on this route enabled the city to flourish.

More information: The Culture Trip

Innsbruck became the capital of all Tyrol in 1429 and in the 15th century the city became a centre of European politics and culture as Emperor Maximilian I also resided in Innsbruck in the 1490s. The city benefited from the emperor's presence as can be seen for example in the Hofkirche. Here a funeral monument for Maximilian was planned and erected partly by his successors. The ensemble with a cenotaph and the bronze statues of real and mythical ancestors of the Habsburg emperor are one of the main artistic monuments of Innsbruck. 

A regular postal service between Innsbruck and Mechelen was established in 1490 by the Thurn-und-Taxis-Post.

In 1564 Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria received the rulership over Tirol and other Further Austrian possessions administered from Innsbruck up to the 18th century. He had Schloss Ambras built and arranged there his unique Renaissance collections nowadays mainly part of Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum.

More information: Tyrol

Up to 1665 a stirps of the Habsburg dynasty ruled in Innsbruck with an independent court. In the 1620s the first opera house north of the Alps was erected in Innsbruck (Dogana).

In 1669 the university was founded. Also as a compensation for the court as Emperor Leopold I again reigned from Vienna and the Tyrolean stirps of the Habsburg dynasty had ended in 1665.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Tyrol was ceded to Bavaria, ally of France. Andreas Hofer led a Tyrolean peasant army to victory in the Battles of Bergisel against the combined Bavarian and French forces, and then made Innsbruck the centre of his administration. The combined army later overran the Tyrolean militia army and until 1814 Innsbruck was part of Bavaria.
 

Visiting Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol

After the Vienna Congress Austrian rule was restored. Until 1918, the town, one of the 4 autonomous towns in Tyrol, was part of the Austrian monarchy, Austria side after the compromise of 1867, head of the district of the same name, one of the 21 Bezirkshauptmannschaften in the Tyrol province.

The Tyrolean hero Andreas Hofer was executed in Mantua; his remains were returned to Innsbruck in 1823 and interred in the Franciscan church.

More information: Innsbruck Visitors Guide

During World War I, the only recorded action taking place in Innsbruck was near the end of the war. On February 20, 1918, Allied planes flying out of Italy raided Innsbruck, causing casualties among the Austrian troops there. No damage to the town is recorded.

In November 1918 Innsbruck and all Tyrol were occupied by the 20 to 22 thousand soldiers of the III Corps of the First Italian Army.

In 1938 Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in the Anschluss. Between 1943 and April 1945, Innsbruck experienced twenty-two air raids and suffered heavy damage.

In 1996, the European Union approved further cultural and economic integration between the Austrian province of Tyrol and the Italian autonomous provinces of South Tyrol and Trentino by recognizing the creation of the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino.

More information: Europa Region

 When you're six years old, 

you do not appreciate that you're living in the Alps. 

Ahna O'Reilly

TINA PICOTES VISITS THE STATE OF TIROL IN AUSTRIA

Tina Picotes in Innsbruck, Tyrol

Tina Picotes is visiting Tirol, a wonderful bundesland with centuries of history and an own culture.

Tirol or Tyrol is a federal state or Bundesland in western Austria. It comprises the Austrian part of the historical Princely County of Tyrol. 

It is a constituent part of the present-day Euroregion Tyrol–South Tyrol–Trentino, together with South Tyrol and Trentino in Italy. The capital of Tyrol is Innsbruck.

More information: Province of Tyrol

The state of Tyrol is separated into two parts, divided by a 7-kilometre wide strip. The larger territory is called Nordtirol and the smaller area is called Osttirol. The neighbouring Austrian state of Salzburg stands to the east, while on the south Tyrol has a border with the Italian province of South Tyrol which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the First World War. 

Tina Picotes in The Golden Roof House, Innsbruck

Tyrol shares its borders with the federal state of Salzburg in the east and Vorarlberg in the west. In the north, it adjoins to the German state of Bavaria; in the south, it shares borders with the Italian province of South Tyrol and the Swiss canton of Graubünden. East Tyrol also shares its borders with the federal state of Carinthia to the east and Italy's Province of Belluno, Veneto, to the south.

The state's territory is located entirely within the Eastern Alps at the Brenner Pass. The highest mountain in the state is the Großglockner, part of the Hohe Tauern range on the border with Carinthia. It has a height of 3,797 m, making it the highest mountain in Austria.

More information: Tyrol

In ancient times, the region was split between the Roman provinces of Raetia, left of the Inn River, and Noricum. From the mid-6th century, it was resettled by Germanic Bavarii tribes. In the Early Middle Ages it formed the southern part of the German stem duchy of Bavaria, until the Counts of Tyrol, former Vogt officials of the Trent and Brixen prince-bishops at Tyrol Castle, achieved imperial immediacy after the deposition of the Bavarian duke Henry the Proud in 1138, and their possessions formed a state of the Holy Roman Empire in its own right.

When the Counts of Tyrol died out in 1253, their estates were inherited by the Meinhardiner Counts of Görz. 

In 1271, the Tyrolean possessions were divided between Count Meinhard II of Görz and his younger brother Albert I, who took the lands of East Tyrol around Lienz and attached it, as outer county, to his committal possessions around Gorizia inner county.

The last Tyrolean countess of the Meinhardiner Dynasty, Margaret, bequeathed her assets to the Habsburg duke Rudolph IV of Austria in 1363. In 1420, the committal residence was relocated from Merano to Innsbruck. The Tyrolean lands were reunited when the Habsburgs inherited the estates of the extinct Counts of Görz in 1500.

More information: Stadt Innsbruck

In the course of the German mediatization in 1803, the prince-bishoprics of Trent and Brixen were secularized and merged into the County of Tyrol, which in the next year became a constituent land of the Austrian Empire, but Tyrol was ceded to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1805. 

Tina Picotes inside her home in Kufstein

Later, South Tyrol was ceded to the Kingdom of Italy, a client state of the First French Empire, by Bavaria in 1810. After Napoleon's defeat, the whole of Tyrol was returned to Austria in 1814.

Tyrol was a Cisleithanian Kronland, royal territory, of Austria-Hungary from 1867. The County of Tyrol then extended beyond the boundaries of today's state, including North Tyrol and East Tyrol; South Tyrol and Trentino, Welschtirol, as well as three municipalities, which today are part of the adjacent Province of Belluno. 

More information: Kufsteinerland

After World War I, these lands became part of the Kingdom of Italy according to the 1915 London Pact and the provisions of the Treaty of Saint Germain. Since November 1918 it was occupied by 20-22000 soldiers of the Italian Army.

After World War II, Tyrol was governed by France until Austria regained independence again in 1955.

 ...seen from above, landscapes are made up of mountains and watercourses. Just as a transparent model of the human body consists of a framework of bone and a network of arteries, the earth's crust is structured in mountain ridges, river, creeks, and gullies.

Reinhold Messner