Innsbruck City Travel Guide
The Inn valley has always been strategicaly important due to its
geographical and central location. The first settlements date back to the
Bronze Age. As the Roman Empire expanded to the North, the valley became an
important military transportation route. They built a fortified road fort,
Veldidena, which is now Innsbruck's district of Wilten. With the settlements
of the Bajuwaren, the area became Bavarian and was later given to the
Bishops of Brixen, who lost more and more control of the area to the native
Tyrolean counts. In the year 1187 the name "Innsbrucke", which means Bridge
over the River Inn, is first mentioned. Soon they built Innsbruck as the
centre of their domain.
In the 15th century the emperor Maximilian I made Innsbruck the centre of
his new administration, culture and financial politics. He erected the "Goldene
Dachl" in the core of Innsbruck's now historic center, a renaissance oriole,
decorated with gold painted copper shingles. In 1665 Empress Maria Theresia
built the Triumph Gate and expanded the "Hofburg", the residence of the
Habsburgs in Innsbruck.
Nowadays, the architecture of this period still characterises the cityscape
of Innsbruck.
In 1805 Napoleon's armies defeated Austria and Tyrol was given to the
Bavarians. The Tyrolean resistance fighter Andreas Hofer managed to free
Tyrol from the German and French troops for a while an in 1814 it was
returned to the Austrians. Andreas Hofer is a Tyrolean National hero and a
large painted round panorama picture, the "Rundgemälde", was dedicated to
his fight on the Mount Isle.
Nowadays Innsbruck, with its 150.000 inhabitants, is, as a result of its
favourable position in the Alps, an international centre for winter sports
and was the host of the Olympic Winter Games twice, in 1964 and 1976.
Innsbruck is also kind of an unofficial capital for snowboarding in Europe.
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