Snapshot

Muhr is a village near the headwaters of the Mur river in the western Lungau, about as far from Salzburg city as you can get while remaining in Salzburg State. Around 150 residents, one hotel, a lake, a Baroque church, and the memory of a mining economy that fed the village for three centuries before leaving it to find a different kind of life.

The Story

The Lungau is Salzburg State’s high, landlocked plateau in the south, sheltered by the Hohe Tauern to the north and the Nockberge to the south. Muhr sits in the western part of the plateau, close to where the Mur river begins its long descent toward Styria and Hungary.

The village has records from the mid-thirteenth century, when it was already a small mining community. Tin, copper, and black tourmaline were extracted from the surrounding hills, and the settlement expanded through the sixteenth century as the mining peaked. By the mid-eighteenth century the mineral seams were exhausted, and the community contracted to the agricultural and pastoral scale it has maintained since.

The Baroque church dedicated to St. Rupert is the village’s most prominent structure, an eighteenth-century building with a bell tower that has served as a landmark for travellers crossing the plateau. The nearby Murwinkel lake is walkable from the village on a free, marked trail.

Muhr today is remote by any measure. The nearest railway is a 30-minute drive. The village has one hotel. The appeal is proportional to the visitor’s tolerance for that kind of isolation: clean air, undisturbed alpine landscape, and the particular quiet that comes from a place that has no particular reason to be busy.

For travellers moving through the Lungau by car, Muhr is a natural stop on the way to or from the Tamsweg area or the Hohe Tauern National Park access points. As a destination in itself, it rewards visitors who come specifically for the walking or for the experience of a village that the main tourism circuits have not reached.

Planning

Muhr is approximately 110 kilometres from Salzburg city, roughly 90 minutes by car via the A10 and the Tauernautobahn. There is no rail connection; a car is the practical requirement. The Murwinkel lake loop is under 3 kilometres and free. The church is open during daylight hours. Hotel Muhr is the only accommodation option in the village.