Besucherbergwerk Prettau

Prettau Show Mine - Miniera di Predoi

Useful Information

Location:	In Prettau, Ahrntal (valley of the Ahrn river). Brenner Highway, exit Brixen/Bressanone, follow E66 Puster valley road to Bruneck. Turn left on SS621 into Ahrntal, in Sand in Taufers follow signs to Luttach Ahrntal. Prettau is almost at the end of the valley. (47.045089, 12.120602)
Open:	Mid-APR to OCT Tue-Sun, Hol 10-17, last tour 15. Please book in advance, in AUG pre booking required. [2022]
Fee:	Adventure Gallery, Combined tickets with Museum Steinhaus: Adults EUR 12, Children (0-16) EUR 5, Students (17-27) EUR 5, Seniors (65+) EUR 8, Family (2+*) EUR 24. Mining Junior Prettau: Adults EUR 12, Children (0-16) EUR 10. Climate gallery: Adults EUR 18, Children (0-16) EUR 7, Students (17-27) EUR 15, Seniors (65+) EUR 15, Disabled EUR 15, Apprentices (17-27) EUR 15. Reservation necessary for all tours. Be there 20 minutes prior to your booked time slot. [2022]
Classification:	Copper Mine Speleotherapy
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:	T=9 °C.
Guided tours:	Adventure Gallery: L=340 m, D=90 min. ( ) Audioguides in different languages with Hearonymus app.
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Besucherbergwerk Prettau, Hörmanngasse 38/A, I-39030 Prettau Ahrntal, Tel: +39-474-654298. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1000 BC	the mine was already used during the Bronze Age.
1426	mine first mentioned: Friedrich IV needed two guns to siege Castle Greifenstein.
1479	closed by an edict of the sovereign Erzherzog Sigmund to protect the mine in Schwaz.
1485	sold by the towns to the sovereign.
1490	reopened.
1504	the Freiherren von Welsperg bought shares.
1560	completely owned by the Freiherren von Welsperg.
1562	inherited by the family of Wolkenstein-Rodenegg.
1618 to 1648	the Thirty Years War had a bad influence on the economy of middle Europe and also on the mine.
1676	sold to Freiherr von Sternbach and Graf von Tannenberg who made it flourish.
1831	new owner Graf Enzenberg, had no luck with the mine.
1864	bronze axe found inside the mine.
1893	mine closed due to falling copper prices.
1957	mine reopened by an Italian Company.
1972	mine finally closed.
2001	tunnel for speleotherapy opened.

Geology

Near Prettau at the Rötkreuz, copper ores veins meet the surface at nearly 2000 m asl. The veins are only 10 m wide and more or less vertical, so only for a short time mining at the surface was possible. The latter and deeper mines used horizontal tunnels from the valley to meet the ore.

The ore is rather low in copper, but because of the chemistry of the ore, the copper from here once had a very good quality. It was excellent for making fine wires.

Description

The visitors of the Besucherbergwerk Prettau use the mine railway to enter the mine through the 1000 m long St. Ignaz-Erbstollen. Two floors of the mine are visited in a round course with several displays about the history of the mine. There are various stops with multimedia displays in differnet languages. At one point the ore is seen as it is found in the rock naturally. This is where the mining stopped in 1972.

The vertical ore deposit made it necessary to go deeper and deeper as mining continued. The location in this mountainous area with its high precipitation, rain during summer and snow in the long winter, is the reason for high amounts of water inside the mine. Old documents tell that the miners had to remove two bags of water for one bag of ore. This became a true problem, so the miners started to build horizontal adits from the valley into the ore. They were slightly ascending into the mine and so they could be used to drain the mine without the need of work or energy. The water was just flowing out by gravity. But the deeper the mine got, the deeper the adits were and the longer they had to be. The second-lowest adit, the St. Nikolas Herrenbau Stollen was already 1,000 m long and the miners needed 88 years to build it (1611-1698) manually. The lowest adit, the St. Ignaz Stollen was built 1761 to 1804, although about 100 m longer it took only 43 years to build, as the miners used gunpowder. Nevertheless, the construction of these tunnels took several generations of miners and was an investment into a far future, which neither the miners nor the owner would see.

The various tunnels from the modern show mine up to the open cast pits at 2,000 m asl. are connected by a mining path. This path is rather steep and has a vertical range of 600 m, so it takes at least 2.5 hours and is rather strenuous. Still it is very interesting and offers impressive views on the Alpine landscape.

One tunnel of this mine is used for speleotherapy, which they call Climate gallery. The patients enter the mine with the same mine train, but it goes in about 100 m further to the entrance of the therapy tunnel. This tunnel is equipped with a double door, to avoid any change in the air quality, which is absolutely pure without any dust or pollen. There are restrooms and chairs for the patients. The patients stay here for two hours every day, so they get sleeping bags to keep warm in the cool air.