Mittenwald

Mittenwald lies picturesquely at the foot of the Karwendel and has been famous for its violin-making since the 17th century. The houses of the old town are richly decorated with Lüftlmalerei. Above the village the Karwendel railway leads up to around 2,244 m to a wide mountain panorama and Germany's highest nature information point.

Highlights

• Traditional violin-making
• Lüftlmalerei on the houses
• Karwendel railway to around 2,244 m
• Setting at the foot of the Karwendel

Good to know

Practical info

Background & History

Mittenwald lies at the foot of the rugged Karwendel chain on an ancient trade route that once connected Verona with Augsburg. For centuries the place owed its prosperity to this movement of goods, but with the Thirty Years’ War the long-distance trade collapsed. What followed made the market town world-famous: violin making. Its founder was Matthäus Klotz, who lived from 1653 to 1743 and is said to have learned his craft from a pupil of the great Cremonese master Nicola Amati. From his workshop grew a whole dynasty of instrument makers who made Mittenwald a centre of stringed-instrument making north of the Alps.

The tradition is cultivated to this day; in 1853 a violin-making school was established, and in Klotz’s birthplace the Violin Making Museum recalls the art of shaping sound from sycamore maple and spruce. The townscape itself resembles an open picture book of Upper Bavarian Lüftlmalerei (façade painting): on many façades, above all on the parish church of St. Peter and Paul, artful wall paintings of the 18th century glow. The monument to Matthäus Klotz in front of the church was created by Ferdinand von Miller, and thus the place keeps the memory of its greatest son alive.