During our recent visit to Austria, we spent a week in the village of Matrei im Osttirol (i.o.) [map] [reference], which is about 25km away from Lienz, and sits in a valley nestled between the Alps of that region. One of the mountains there is Goldried Mountain, and that’s where we stayed, at Hotel Goldried. I need to specify Matrei i.o. because there’s another village called Matrei am Brenner (a.b.) [map], near Innsbruck.

Matrei i.o. is a beautiful little village, and you get to see gorgeous mountain vistas from just about any place in town or around it. I counted 6 or 7 tall peaks around the village, and all looked to be over 2000m high. The road to take in order to reach it is the Felbertauernstraße, a scenic road that cuts through mountain slopes and barrels right through the belly of a mountain with a 5km long tunnel. As you drive on the Felbertauernstraße from Mitersill toward Matrei i.o., and you exit at the other side of the tunnel, a gorgeous valley opens up in front of you, and it gets progressively wider as you get closer to Matrei. Finally, you see the village itself in the distance, bathed in sunlight, while you’re still in the shadows of the tall peaks that surround you on either side.

During our stay in Matrei, we were mostly out of town, either hiking on the mountains nearby, particularly the Goldried mountain, or taking day trips to see Großglockner [reference], Innsbruck, Salzburg or Münich. We did take time though to see Matrei as well, and we weren’t disappointed. It’s a very clean village, well-organized, and very picturesque. There are numerous hotels or gasthofe (guest houses/pensions), and you will see Zimmer Frei (room available) signs on many of the villas in town, so you don’t have to worry about not being able to stay somewhere if you visit.

The region near and around Matrei is part of the Hohe Tauern National Park, one of Austria’s most beautiful parks, and there are many incredible places to see on day trips from Matrei [reference]. Not to miss are the Europa Panoramaweg, which we visited, the Gletscherlehrweg Innergschlöss, and any of a number of hikes from the Eagle Walk category. There’s also a ropeway which starts in town and takes you up to 2100m, called the Matrei Goldried. They have 8-person closed gondolas, and drop you off right on the Europa Panoramaweg (I’ll write about this later).

Here are some more photos taken in Matrei. To see the full set, go to my online photo catalog, which I’ve recently started to populate with photos, at Raoul Pop Photography. I’m still adjusting the options and the look of the catalog, so please accept my apologies if some of the options don’t work as expected, but there are 60-some photos in the Matrei set that you might want to see, and there’s no point in delaying that.

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