[VideoView]
Franz Lorenz
The first mountaineers were aristocrats
video length:
01:52
interviewer:
Ruth Deutschmann
photography:
Benjamin Epp
copyright location:
Galtür
date of recording:
2008-08-22
English translation by:
Sylvia Manning-Baumgartner
Italian translation by:
Nicole D´Incecco
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1840
transcription:
In the middle of the last century the first gentlemen of the upper class came. They were from the surrounding countries, from Lower Switzerland and the area around Lake Constance. They thought they might see more if they climbed higher up and then they'd know more than the others. Then they'd be heroes, pioneers etc. Until the middle of the 19th century, till about 1830, 1840, more and more people from the upper classes came, from the upper classes of the time. The first real mountaineers were aristocrats, church dignitaries and freelancers like judges, doctors, notaries and teachers. They reported about it when they got home and so the influx into the alpine region increased. We usually had German-speaking visitors from the region. In western Switzerland, there were many English. They had returned from the colonies in India and the highlands of the Himalayas. Officers in retirement who didn't know what to do with their time headed for the Alps. That's how walking in the Alps, mountaineering, developed.