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in the Zillertal

The Zillertal runs south from the Inn valley for about thirty flat kilometres and then splits into four steep side valleys, and Mayrhofen sits exactly at the fork. The village itself is Tyrolean rather than pretty-postcard: painted inns and balconied houses along the Hauptstraße, the Ziller running clear through the middle, and mountains closing both ends of the street. Two cable cars leave from the village — the Penkenbahn to the west and the Ahornbahn to the east, which carries the largest cabins in Austria up to the Ahorn plateau at about 1,950 metres, a broad open shoulder with benches, a lake and the Zillertal Alps facing you. Thirty kilometres south, at the head of the Zamser Grund, the Schlegeis reservoir holds an unreal turquoise under the Hochfeiler and a line of glaciers. The road up is a toll road with narrow tunnels and is open roughly from late May or June to October; it is closed and unploughed in winter, so check before driving. The classic frame is from the path towards the Olpererhütte, about an hour and a half up from the dam. The other end of the valley is the Hintertux glacier, at the top of the Tuxertal, and it is the one place in Austria that runs 365 days a year — lifts to 3,250 metres in August as in February, ice caves inside the glacier, and snow on the ground when the valley below is green. Summer is meadows, cattle and long light on the Ahorn; winter is a full ski valley with snow down to Mayrhofen from around December to April.