Lake Wolfgang | |
---|---|
Location | Salzburg, Upper Austria |
Coordinates | 47°45′N13°24′E / 47.750°N 13.400°E |
Type | Glacial lake |
Basin countries | Austria |
Surface area | 13 km2 (5.0 sq mi) |
Max. depth | 114 m (374 ft) |
Water volume | 667.07 million cubic metres (540,800 acre⋅ft) |
Surface elevation | 538 m (1,765 ft) |
Settlements | Strobl, St. Gilgen, Abersee, Ried, St. Wolfgang |
Lake Wolfgang [1] [2] [3] (German : Wolfgangsee) is a lake in Austria that lies mostly within the state of Salzburg and is one of the best known lakes in the Salzkammergut resort region. The municipalities on its shore are Strobl, St. Gilgen with the villages of Abersee and Ried as well as the market town of St. Wolfgang in the state of Upper Austria. The town and the lake are named after Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg, who, according to legend, built the first church here in the late 10th century.
Lake Wolfgang stretches about 10.5 kilometres from the northwest to the southeast. It is divided into two parts by a peninsula, called die Enge (the Narrow), situated roughly in the middle of its southern shore opposite St. Wolfgang, where the breadth is no more than 200 metres. The western portion of the lake at St. Gilgen is known as the Abersee.
The lake has an area of about 12.9 to 13.1 km2 and is surrounded by the Salzkammergut mountain range. On the northern side, the Schafberg is located. A rack railway, the Schafbergbahn leads up to the summit at 1,782 m. Due to the steep shore at its foot only a footpath connects St. Wolfgang and the village of Ried with St. Gilgen along the Falkensteinwand, the set of the Bergpsalmen ("mountain psalms") lyric anthology written by Joseph Viktor von Scheffel in 1870. In the south and southwest of Lake Wolfgang lies the Osterhorngruppe, with heights up to 1,800 metres. Directly south of St. Gilgen rises the Zwölferhorn (1,522 m), which can be visited by cable car.
The settlements around the lake, especially St. Wolfgang and St. Gilgen are popular resort towns, mainly in summer. The Gasthaus Weißes Rössl at St. Wolfgang is the set of the famous 1897 operetta The White Horse Inn by Ralph Benatzky, performed throughout the world and filmed several times. Furthermore, the area around the lake was the location of several Heimatfilm movies, suggesting an untouched alpine idyll. Because Lake Wolfgang has been the vacation resort of former German chancellor Helmut Kohl for many years, the film director Christoph Schlingensief made the lake a site of his Chance 2000 project of 1998 when he invited "Germany's four million unemployed" to take a bath in the lake and flood Kohl's residence.
The Bundesstraße B158 from Bad Ischl to Salzburg runs along the southern shore of Lake Wolfgang. In St. Gilgen the B154 highway branches off, leading to the A1 Westautobahn motorway (European route E55 and E60). The former Salzkammergut-Lokalbahn narrow gauge railway to Salzburg went out of service in 1957. Ship transport on the lake is provided by the Salzburg AG public utility company, which runs six vessels.
Salzburg is an Austrian federal state. In German it is called a Bundesland, a German-to-English dictionary translates that to federal state and the European Commission calls it a province. In German, its official name is Land Salzburg, to distinguish it from its eponymous capital Salzburg. For centuries, it was an independent Prince-Bishopric of the Holy Roman Empire. It borders Germany & Italy.
Tourism in Austria forms an important part of the country's economy, accounting for almost 9% of the Austrian gross domestic product. Austria has one guest bed for every six inhabitants, and boasts the highest per capita income from tourism in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. As of 2007, the total number of tourist overnight stays is roughly the same for summer and winter season, with peaks in February and July/August.
The Engadin or Engadine is a long high Alpine valley region in the eastern Swiss Alps in the canton of Graubünden in southeasternmost Switzerland with about 25,000 inhabitants. It follows the route of the Inn from its headwaters at Maloja Pass in the southwest running roughly northeast until the Inn flows into Austria, little less than one hundred kilometers downstream. The En/Inn subsequently flows at Passau into the Danube, making it the only Swiss river to drain into the Black Sea. The Engadine is protected by high mountain ranges on all sides and is famous for its sunny climate, beautiful landscapes and outdoor activities.
The Salzkammergut is a resort area in Austria, stretching from the city of Salzburg eastwards along the Alpine Foreland and the Northern Limestone Alps to the peaks of the Dachstein Mountains. The main river of the region is the Traun, a right tributary of the Danube.
The White Horse Inn is an operetta or musical comedy by Ralph Benatzky and Robert Stolz in collaboration with a number of other composers and writers, set in the picturesque Salzkammergut region of Upper Austria. It is about the head waiter of the White Horse Inn in St. Wolfgang who is desperately in love with the owner of the inn, a resolute young woman who at first only has eyes for one of her regular guests. Sometimes classified as an operetta, the show enjoyed huge successes in the West End, as a Broadway version, and was filmed several times. In a way similar to The Sound of Music and the three Sissi movies, the play and its film versions have contributed to the popular image of Austria as an alpine idyll—the kind of idyll tourists have been seeking for almost a century now. Today, Im weißen Rößl is mainly remembered for its songs, many of which have become popular classics.
St. Gilgen is a village by Lake Wolfgang in the Austrian state of Salzburg, in the Salzkammergut region.
Strobl is a municipality of the Salzburg-Umgebung District (Flachgau), in the northeastern portion of the Austrian state of Salzburg, right on the border with Upper Austria. It comprises the Katastralgemeinden of Aigen, Gschwendt, Strobl, and Weißenbach.
Zell am See is the administrative capital of the Zell am See District in the Austrian state of Salzburg. Located in the Kitzbühel Alps, the town is an important tourist destination due to its ski resorts and shoreline on Lake Zell. While Zell am See has been a favored winter and summer resort for the European aristocracy since the 19th century, it is known as a hub of the international jet set today.
Abersee is a name given to the western end of the Wolfgangsee, a lake in Austria that lies mostly within the state of Salzburg and which is one of the best known lakes in the Salzkammergut resort region. The name is also associated with the south-western part of the municipality of St. Gilgen.
The Schafberg Railway is a metre gauge cog railway in Upper Austria and Salzburg leading from Sankt Wolfgang im Salzkammergut up to the Schafberg. With a total length of 5.85 km it gains about 1,200 m in height difference.
Vöcklabruck is the administrative center of the Vöcklabruck district, Austria. It is located in the western part of Upper Austria, close to the A1 Autobahn as well as the B1 highway.
Michael Pacher was a painter and sculptor from Tyrol active during the second half of the fifteenth century. He was one of the earliest artists to introduce the principles of Renaissance painting into Germany. Pacher was a comprehensive artist with a broad range of sculpting, painting, and architecture skills producing works of complex wood and stone. He painted structures for altarpieces on a scale unparalleled in North European art.
The Gaisberg is, at 1,288 meters (4,226 ft) above sea level, a mountain to the east of Salzburg, Austria. It belongs to Salzkammergut Mountains, a range of the Northern Limestone Alps. The mountain is one of the Salzburg Hausberge, a recreational area offering views over the city and the Berchtesgaden Alps in the west. On the top of the mountain is the widely visible Gaisberg Transmitter.
St. Wolfgang im Salzkammergut is a market town in central Austria, in the Salzkammergut region of Upper Austria, named after Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg.
Unterach is a village in the Austria state of Upper Austria on the southern shore of lake Attersee in the centre of the Salzkammergut region.
St. Gilgen International School (StGIS) is a co-educational boarding and day school for students between the ages of 9 and 18. The school offers a primary and middle school curriculum leading to the highly regarded International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme qualification in the final two years. The language of instruction is English.
The SKGLB-museum is a railway museum in Mondsee in Upper Austria. It shows relics of the 1957 closed Salzkammergut-Lokalbahn that was a railway line in 760 mm gauge track from Salzburg to Bad Ischl with a branch to Mondsee - a town located at the lake Mondsee. The engine shed of the terminal station at Mondsee is the only preserved engine shed of this line. It has been converted to a museum about the line and its history and contains a collection of original vehicles, photographs and a model layout of the SKGLB's Mondsee branch. The line was privately owned firstly by the Bavarian company "Lokalbahn Aktiengesellschaft" known as LAG. This company owned the cog railway from St. Wolfgang to the Schafberg too which is still in operation.
Schafberg is a mountain in the Austrian state of Salzburg. Situated within the Salzkammergut Mountains range of the Northern Limestone Alps, the Schafberg rises at the shore of Wolfgangsee Lake.
The Salzkammergut Mountains are a mountain range of the Northern Limestone Alps, located in the Austrian states of Salzburg and Upper Austria. They are named after the Salzkammergut historic region, part of the Hallstatt-Dachstein / Salzkammergut Cultural Landscape UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Stainach-Pürgg is a municipality since 2015 in the Liezen District of Styria, Austria.