KUFSTEIN TO KITZBÜHEL
To reach Kitzbühel from Kufstein it is necessary to change trains at Wörgl, eight and a half miles down the Unter-Innthal, and proceed up the Brixen Thal by the Staatsbahn past Hopfgarten to Kitzbühel. The town is a charming one, surrounded by gardens where once there ran a moat, and containing some interesting houses along the banks of the Kitzbühler Ache. Many of them still have Gothic roofs and gables, which give them a mediæval appearance, and one of great charm. The town has of late years become a favourite summer resort, and its fine situation in a wide valley nearly 2500 feet above sea-level has much to recommend it. But its fame is by no means merely that of a summer holiday spot. It is almost equally resorted to for winter sports of tobogganing, ski-ing, and skating, and may be, in fact, called the Tyrolese Grindelwald or Adelboden. Then the snow-clad valley is indeed beautiful, more like fairyland than aught else, with only the church spires of Kitzbühel and the pines on the hillsides to break the wide white expanse.
The Kitzbühelhorn is a favourite ascent, from which very fine views are to be obtained, especially of the giants of the Tauern range, the Chiemsee, and the rocky and impressive Kaiser Gebirge. The pasturage and the Alpine flora in the neighbourhood of Kitzbühel are especially rich, and there are many beautiful excursions to be made in the district round about. In the Brixen Thal, indeed, the artist and the student of costumes and ancient customs, which are, alas! so rapidly dying out, will find much of interest. In many of the villages the annual contests, consisting of wrestling and other sports—which anciently were often so strenuous as to lead to serious injury to the combatants and competitors, and even bloodshed—still take place. At Kitzbühel there is an athletic gathering in June, which is held on a plateau near the inn on the Kitzbühelhorn, and partakes of the character of the Grasmere Sports of our own land, and the Braemar gathering in Scotland.
The peasants as a general rule in the Brixen Thal, as in the more famous Ziller Thal, are musical, and often indeed are quite skilled musicians; and frequently as one wends one's way through the flower-spangled pastures or climbs the mountain-side, from some isolated hut or shady nook beneath a boulder will come the musical tinkling of a cowherd's zithern or the flutey notes of his pipe. But, as a rule, we have found the players shy of performing before strangers, who will therefore be well advised if they listen to the music unseen and without seeking to discover its source.
The Brixen Thal, too, is a great dairy district, the chief industries of which are butter- and cheese-making.
As regards the scenery of the valley one may say that in few others in Tyrol does one come across a greater variety of light and shade, or more delightful cloud effects. Indeed, the clouds, which at one time seem as though they will sweep down the mountain-sides and obscure everything, and at others sail majestically, like huge cotton-wool argosies, across the blue vault of heaven, thousands of feet above the highest peak of the Tauern Giants and the bare and grey limestone peaks of the Kaisergebirge, in themselves form pictures and phenomena of the greatest beauty and of ever changing interest.
MONKISH MIRACLES
Kundl is a small village some four miles south-west from Wörgl, and it would attract little attention from travellers were it not for the curious church of St. Leonard auf der Wiese (St. Leonard in the Meadow) and the quaint legend attached to it. The story goes that early in the eleventh century a stone statue of St. Leonard came floating down the Inn to this spot; and the people, recognizing that for a stone statue to float was nothing less than miraculous, after securing it, set it up by the roadside, so that all who passed by should see and reverence it. Probably modern scepticism will lead us to suppose that the figure was in reality of wood and not stone; and then the miracle explains itself! The region is subject to floods, and doubtless the figure of St. Leonard came from some church higher up the valley which had been destroyed by avalanche or inundation.
However, the story goes on to tell us that the statue had not long been placed in position alongside the high-road ere Henry II., Duke of Bavaria, himself passed that way, and seeing it paused to ask an explanation of its being there. When the story had been told him, he seized the opportunity (as did many other rulers in those days) to strike a bargain with Heaven which, whilst benefiting Mother Church, would also be not without profit to himself. He therefore vowed that if the expedition into Italy, which had brought him along that road, should prosper and his forces be victorious, he would on his return build a handsome votive church over the spot where the figure of the saint stood.
Alas! for human vows, even those of one destined to become an Emperor. Although his arms prospered, and he was crowned at Pavia, and made King of Germany, he forgot all about St. Leonard. Some years later (in 1012) fortunes and the cares of his kingdom once more brought him into Tyrol on his way northward and to the spot where the figure of the saint still stood by the roadside. Then another miracle happened, for his horse, "although urged forward with whip and spur and words," refused to pass the spot where his master had formerly made so solemn a vow, and stood foaming and champing his bit much to his rider's embarrassment. As was but natural, the Emperor at once remembered his vow and set about fulfilling it.