The most beautiful cities in Austria

Welcome to one of Europe’s most beautiful countries. Austria’s landscapes, regions and townscapes provide almost the full range of European variety in the centre of the continent. Austria is often associated, rightly, with winter sports, but there is so much more on offer. Its alpine areas are rugged and picturesque, but that’s far from being the whole story.

Bischofshofen

The Pongau region has a timeless history of copper mining and a church connection as a bishops' residence, so the survival of two medieval churches and the 12th century tower Kastenturm in today's Bischofshofen is probably not surprising.

The town's parish church St Maximilian remains from a monastery and still has some Romanesque features. It displays a reproduction of the so-called cross of St Rupert, an 8th century Anglo-Saxon ceremonial object, which was gifted to the church. Its interior frescoes are believed to be from the 15th century. Frescoes in the nearby Gothic Frauenkirche are probably even older.