Tyrol

These subregions are the administrative districts, which don't really correspond to tourist or travel regions. As most roads follow the valley and passes between them, the natural regions are valleys (German: tal). The Lower Inn Valley is large and covers much of central Tyrol.

Innsbruck Land and Innsbruck Stadt:

• 🌍 Stubaier Gletscher – a Glacier

Imst:

• 🌍 Pitztal
• 🌍 Ötztal

Kufstein:

• 🌍 Ellmau

Landeck:

• 🌍 Kaunertal
• 🌍 Silvretta

Schwaz:

• 🌍 Eng — the largest alm in Europe and one of the most remote settlements in the Alps

East Tyrol:

• 🌍 Hohe Tauern National Park – at 1,834 km² (708 sq mi) the largest nature reserve in the Alps, including the Grossglockner and Grossvenediger massifs.

North Tyrol borders the German state of Bavaria to the north, Vorarlberg to the west, the Swiss canton Graubünden to the south-west, Salzburg to the east. South Tyrol is in Italy, part of Trentino-Alto Adige.

Like its sister provinces of Bavaria in Germany and Salzburgerland in Austria, Tyrol is the very definition of the Germanic Alpine stereotype. Full of romantic lakes and castles and beer-drinking lederhosen-clad locals playing oom-pa-pa music and marching in bands, the place can seem a bit of a fairy tale to the visitor at times. Innsbruck is the only real "bigger" city, with the rest a beautiful natural panorama. The roads get clogged with tourists in the summer and winter months.

As in nearly all of Austria, Austro-Bavarian is the main everyday spoken language of Tyrol (except in Reutte district where it is Alemannic). The Tyrolean dialect is even often tricky to understand for residents of eastern Austria (including Vienna) let alone from northern Germany. But, as in all of Austria, standard (Austrian) German is the official language used in all official publications and schools, so the vast majority speaks it, and in Innsbruck basically everyone is fluent. English is spoken by most educated middle aged and young people, and Italian is also quite prevalent due to the proximity of the South Tyrolian border and a small immigrant community in Innsbruck. Tyroleans greet each other with Servus rather than the more common Grussgott elsewhere in Austria.

The alpine geography creates obvious chokepoints for both road and rail traffic and during busy times there may be restrictions on driving with visitors using local roads having to prove they are indeed visiting local accommodation and not transiting the country. Many road and rail tunnels have already been built, but the politically contentious situation is likely to remain difficult until the opening of the Brenner Base Tunnel which will hopefully divert a significant share of transiting freight transport from road to rail. If you can arrange a rail based troop to your destination, do so for the sake of your own sanity.

• 🌍 Achenseebahn (Achensee Railway), Jenbach, Tyrol (Near Jenbach train station). Ride Europe's oldest steam-operated cog railway which opened in 1889. (updated Oct 2016)
• Erlebnistherme Zillertal in Kapfing has indoor and outdoor pools and wellness including water slides and fun park.

• Tiroler Speck - a juniper-flavored ham

• Bolzano/Bozen — capital of South Tyrol
• Brenner Pass and Timmelsjoch are scenic ways of getting into Italy.