Scharnitz city guide
One of the great things about Austria is that you can base your hiking trip in any number of small towns and still be able to find great hiking from there.
I’ve written about many of the small and less small towns in Austria in other parts of the blog:
This post focuses on Scharnitz, which is on the border of Germany and Austria.
Scharnitz is only a few miles away from Mittenwald, which is its equivalent town on the German side. What’s interesting is that you can see the difference in how the two countries developed after World War Two. Before the introduction of the Euro and the Schengen zone, allowing for free travel within Europe, it was substantially more complicated for German tourists to get to Scharnitz than to go to Mittenwald to go hiking - they’d have to worry about changing money and passport control. As a result, Scharnitz never developed nearly the same number of tourist destinations as Mittenwald, and until Austria joined the Euro, was much poorer than Mittenwald.
You can still see this when you look at the lodgings and restaurants in the towns - the fanciest hotels and restaurants are all in Mittenwald, and the prices in Scharnitz were half when we looked.
Staying There
When I was there, we chose to stay in a guesthouse in the middle of town. If you’re booking in peak summer season, you may want to look ahead of time, as tons of people come into the area to go hiking. We didn’t have any issue finding a nice place.
The one thing to check for is grocery stores. There weren’t many options in Scharnitz, and we had to go to Mittenwald to get some of our groceries. This is especially true if you’re coming in on a Sunday - most stores close in Germany/Austria on Sundays, and you’ll be out of luck.
And if you can’t find an open grocery store, you’ll just have to have lunch at a beautiful mountain cabin. It’s basically the rules.
Getting Around
Getting to Scharnitz or Mittenwald is relatively easy from either Innsbruck or Munich. There are frequent trains to both from either location. You don’t need to rent a car, since the hiking trails are all relatively close to town, and you’ve got the train if you do point to point.
Hiking Options
I did a few different hikes in the area:
Beyond that, Tirol tourist information can give you more information on any of the individual hikes and has suggestions and hiking details on their website.
Other Stuff to Do
Scharnitz is really a hiking focused town, and there’s not much to do other than outdoor sports. There are biking trails as well around the town, so you could bike through the area and enjoy the views of the high mountains around you. If you’re looking for a variety of activities, I’d suggest looking elsewhere.
But if you really love minigolf, as my brother and I do, you could also decide to walk to Germany (a whole three miles) in order to play minigolf at the Mittenwald minigolf course.
Mittenwald also has sports facilities, shopping, and restaurants, but again, if that’s what you’re going for, I’d recommend Innsbruck or Salzburg.
