Tyrol (Austria) -- Description and travel; Tyrol (Austria) -- History
From Schwaz to Zirl,[26] beyond Innsbruck, is between twenty-nine and
thirty miles, either by train or road. The latter is quite good for
cycling, and those who are not cyclists or pedestrians will find to
make the journey by carriage a delightful way of reaching the
picturesque little village from which the ascent of the Gross Solstein
may be made, and that also of the more romantic and famous
Martinswand.
The village is, unlike many of those lying in the Unter-Innthal, east
of Innsbruck, an agricultural one, with most of the houses built in
straight rows, and having quaint and picturesque, but not very clean
or salubrious, courtyards in the rear. Some of the most charming
groups of peasants, ox-carts, and "farm scenes" are to be found at
Zirl, which is a good deal visited by artists, and invites the
attention of amateur photographers.
In most cases the houses have their dwelling-rooms and sleeping
accommodation on the first floor, which is reached by flights of
steps, and the exteriors of the dwellings are made picturesque and
quaint by the projecting gables of carved wood, and the galleries
which jut out beneath them, where the corn, herbs, and other produce
is either laid out or hung up to dry. As in other villages of the Inn
Thal, one sees the love of colour in the delicate pink, blue (almost a
lavender), and green tints of the stucco-work on the house-fronts and
walls. Zirl is a picture-village, too, and on the houses, as one
drives or walks through the narrow streets, one catches glimpses of
paintings of Virgins, saints engaged in vigorous and deadly combats
with evil-looking monsters of the dragon tribe, and here and there,
set in a niche in the wall, a tiny figure of a Madonna, saint, or
crucifix protected with glass, and often surrounded with a chaplet or
bunches of withered flowers.
One of the Inns, named "the Regenbogen," has a most vivid and even
startling representation of a rainbow (which gives it its name)
painted over the arched doorway.
The church of Zirl is chiefly interesting from the frescoes it
contains, which are the work of Schöpf. The churchyard is a spot in
which to linger. It is instinct with the pathos which comes in a
measure from partial neglect, and picturesqueness of environment.
One of the little town's chief attractions to the antiquarian and the
student of ancient and curious things will undoubtedly be the
Calvarienberg, which lies a little to the north; green and beautiful,
and crowned by a picturesque pilgrimage church. The ascent is
comparatively easy, and well repays one for the climb, not only on
account of the interest of the "Calvary," to form which the natural
rocks have been adapted, but by reason of the delightful views which
are obtainable from the plateau.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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