If you are staying in Bramberg or Neukirchen, which are part of the Wildkogel Arena ski area, make sure you visit the local museum near the Smaragdbahn lift. The museum opened its doors to visitors in 1961 and has undergone many changes since then, but is still very popular with tourists.
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As well as historical exhibits about the town and the region, since 2010 there has also been an exhibition of rocks and minerals, with particularly valuable specimens from the Hohe Tauern National Park. Minerals have been part of the Bramberg Museum's exhibits from the very beginning.
The founder of the museum, Professor Hans Hoenigschmid, and Bramberg mineral hunters gathered a collection of local minerals in a showcase. Over the years, the collection has grown (thanks to purchases by the Museum Society, the Municipality of Bramberg and sponsors). In close cooperation with the Natural History Museum in Vienna, important exhibitions were organised and mineralogy became a serious focus of the Bramberg Museum.
The exhibition space is modern, with excellent lighting and a clear arrangement of the exhibits. One of the most interesting pieces in the collection is the Smaragdmadonna mineral stouffe, which has emerald fragments shaped to resemble the silhouette of a praying woman. The crystals, large and small, sparkling and not so sparkling, attract the attention not only of adults but also of curious children.
On the upper floor of the museum, in a separate room, there is an exhibition on beekeeping, where you can see old beehives and beekeepers' tools. Visitors to all the exhibitions will also find out what an Austrian house looked like in the 16th century, what utensils were used for cooking, on which beds they slept, what clothes they wore, what a shoemaker's workshop, barn, sawmill and mill looked like, and what tools were used in the quarries. In short, a visit to Bramberg Museum will be informative and not boring.
