2 Best Sights in Eastern Alps, Austria

A replica 16th-century gold mining village, Alten Pocher is more than 5,906 feet above sea level. Miners prospected in the Hohe Tauern for gold from the 14th to the end of the 19th century, and it was considered one of the most important gold-mining regions of its day. Today, visitors can rent rubber boots and a panning bowl to try their luck in the Fleissbach. Many caves were created through grueling labor by thousands of miners over this period, under the most arduous conditions (of course, the owners of the mines themselves lived comfortable and rich lives).

According to local legend, St. Briccius, after obtaining a vial of the blood of Jesus, was buried by an avalanche, but when his body was recovered the tiny vial was miraculously found hidden within one of the saint's open wounds. The town gets its name, Heiligenblut (Holy Blood), from this story. Today the relic is housed in the Sakramenthäuschen, the chapel of this small but beautiful Gothic church. Completed in 1490 after more than a century of construction under the toughest conditions, the church is marked by its soaring belfry tower. Sublimely, the sharply pointed spire finds an impressive echo in the conical peak of the Grossglockner. St. Vincent's contains a beautifully carved late-Gothic double altar nearly 36 feet high, and the Coronation of Mary is depicted in the altar wings, richly carved by Wolfgang Hasslinger in 1520. The region's most important altarpiece, it imparts a feeling of quiet power in this spare, high church. The church also has a noble crypt and graveyard, the latter sheltering graves of those lost in climbing the surrounding mountains.