Mösern

Mösern sits perched on the edge of the Seefeld plateau with spectacular views out over the Upper Inn valley and across to the Stubaier Alps.

In fact, it calls itself "the swallows' nest of Tirol" and the admiration for the views reaches back into the Middle Ages, when painter Albrecht Dürer stopped here on his way south to escape the plague in his home town.

In one of his most famous paintings, a self-portrait which hangs in the Prado gallery in Madrid, the scene in the window behind him is that of the Inn valley from the viewpoint of Mösern.

The same vantage point is now the setting for the Bell of Peace - a monument dedicated by a cross-border coalition of 11 mountain regions, cantons and counties, the Arge Alp. The bell weighs 10,000 kilograms and was cast in the Innsbruck bell foundry Grassmayr for the 25th anniversary of the organisation in 1997.

Mösern is unusual on the plateau in being administratively classed as part of the town in the valley below - Telfs. The village is, however, very definitely a community of the plateau - with its alpine lakes and woods surrounding the picturesque location.

A lovely walk from Mösern is to take a circular route via Seefeld and the Wildmoos golf course, returning by way of the Gschwandtkopf: Wildmoos Walk