Tirol

Tyrolia


Tyrolia is located completely in the Alps, with mountains of 3,000 to 3,500 m asl. The towns in the valleys are also rather high, with altitudes between 1,000 m and 2,000 m asl. The main attractions of the area are - of course - the mountains. People visit Austria to make walks and climbing tours in summer, and for skiing and snowboarding in winter.

Tyrolia looks rather strange if you look at a map. The country is at the western end of Austria and is divided into two parts. This has historic reasons. It was once much bigger, but World War I. ended with a new border to Italy, and much of the country, called Südtirol (South Tyrolia) belongs to Italy since then. The people there still speak German, after 100 years, at least at home.

The Austrian Tirol has some limestone mountain ridges, called nördliche Kalkalpen (Northern Limestone Alps). But many mountains are composed of plutonic and metamorphic rocks. The tectonic structure is rather complicated. The mountains of Südtirol are the southern Limestone Alps and consist of dolomite, hence they are called Dolomites.

There are only a few caves in Tirol, but two of them are interesting show caves. The Spannagelhöhle, located at the Hintertux Glacier is really spectacular and interesting, located in marble. But Tirol has several valuable ores and thus numerous show mines.