The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. The traditional culture of farming, cheese-making and woodworking still exists in Alpine villages.
The Alps are one of the more popular tourist destinations in the world with many resorts such Oberstdorf, in Bavaria, Saalbach in Austria, Davos in Switzerland, Chamonix in France and Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy recording more than a million annual visitors. With over million visitors a year, tourism is integral to the Alpine economy, with much of it coming from winter sports, although summer visitors are also an important component. This is a collection of DW's content on the Alps.
A boy who was the only survivor of a cable car crash in the Alps must go back to relatives in Italy, an Israeli court has ruled. He has been the focus of a bitter custody battle since his grandfather took him to Israel. At least 15 people were injured when a train derailed and a carriage toppled into the Mur River in Austria.
On their last day of school, dozen of students crawled out of the carriage. Packed with castles and palaces, churches and abbeys, picturesque towns and breathtaking nature, the Romantic Road between the Main river and the Alps is one of the most popular tourist routes in Germany. For tens of thousands of cows, their summer grazing in the Bavarian Alps will have to wait. Thick layers of snow are still blanketing their pastures — but the cold and wet aren't all bad, say experts.
How do communities around the world help empower and enable each other? In France, one group is helping migrants in the treacherous Alps, and a new report shows that there are more and more displaced people in the world. And in Africa, women are supporting each other: An NGO in Nigeria is helping deaf pregnant women while in Somalia new fitness and work opportunities for women are being embraced. Rescuers were able to save one person who was among the hikers. Authorities have warned that the risk of avalanches in the French Alps remains particularly high over the coming days.
Some of the important mammal species that are found in the Alpine region are the ibex Capra ibex , Alpine hare Lepus timidus , red deer Cervus elaphus , etc.
The European lynx Lynx lynx and the marmot Marmota marmota have been successfully reintroduced in the Swiss Alps. The notable avian species that are found here include the Golden eagle, peregrine falcon , black grouse, black woodpecker, etc.
Currently, the Alpine region is home to about 14 million people in the eight main Alpine countries and is annually visited by more than million tourists. Crops including fruits and wine grapes are cultivated in the valleys and in the foothills of the Alps.
During the summer months, the flat upland regions provide pastures for the grazing of livestock. Some of the major economic activities in the Alpine region are tourism, dairy farming, mining of iron ore , and generating hydroelectric power.
Diptarka Ghosh March 18 in Landforms. Lastly, some people in France near the city of Nice are Italian speakers. Romansh, the fourth official language of Switzerland, is now spoken only in small parts of Switzerland and you will get by just as well with German in those areas. While the Alps are rather centrally located within Europe, they have been a barrier to all types of travel for millennia.
The 19th century brought with it a number of still impressive technological feats "taming" the Alps. While there are efforts to replace some tunnels and bridges with newer, shorter and faster routes, some passes are still used by trains today.
While the Swiss national railways enjoy a very good reputation, they are rather new to the international business, though there are cooperations with SNCF and DB. Long-distance buses are still mostly a new concept west of the former "iron curtain" and thus getting into the Alps from outside the area can be difficult and expensive.
Intercity buses in France also available in the mids. In Switzerland the "Postauto" has long been a mainstay on mountain roads and a crucial link to the rest of the country for those places not served by any railway. Driving is often a practical way for getting around, especially on the countryside.
The roads often get very congested in July and August when people from further north head to the beaches of the Mediterranean. The same goes for the ski resorts in winter though minus the travel trailers. In the winter many mountain roads are closed to traffic and copious amounts of snowfall may mess up the traffic.
Due to the high costs associated with tunnel building, some railway-only tunnels have trains carrying cars and their passengers running through them. Depending on your itinerary, taking such a train can save you a lengthy detour, time, money or a combination of all three. Sometimes making use of these offers lets you avoid toll roads. Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia have a flat-rate toll system where you pay once for a certain amount of time in Switzerland the shortest possible period is one year, in Austria it is ten days with the next shortest being one month, in Slovenia it's one week to use all normal highways, though there are roads that cost extra and can in theory be used even by those not paying the general toll.
In Italy and France there are distance-based tolls, and in Germany there is as of no toll for passenger cars. Trying to avoid toll roads is not only difficult and making your trip longer than it has to be but usually not worth it in terms of money either. Like elsewhere in Europe, train may be the best kind of public transport.
If you like rail travel through scenic landscapes, the Alpine countries are certainly worth considering. However, in some cases train travel may take longer than you expect as the terrain forces all travel to take long detours. For instance, considering the straight-line distance from Geneva to Turin , a train ride between those cities takes ridiculously long. Some major routes are upgraded with new tunnels and bridges for that reason, but construction is expensive so some routes will still be circuitous for the time being.
Switzerland in particular has an excellent rail network with very good on time performance and one of the densest networks in the world. Add the general wealth of Switzerland to the equation and you will have to shell out quite some money for good service.
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