>Forgotten Innsbruck: Amraser See

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(Thanks to the writer of the Paschberg Blog for the photo above, which I have brazenly purloined. If you read German, his blog is an excellent source of local history and current affairs. I hope my advert for it makes up for my theft!)

I was walking through the southeast side of town the other week and noticed an unusual street sign — “Amraser See Strasse”. Amras Lake? Where the hell is that? Amras is a neighborhood on the edge of town, once a quiet outpost, now the business district. If you walk around beyond the shopping centers and superstores, you find corners of the old village tucked away in hidden places. But a lake? This was a new one for me.
A little internet research brought me closer — the Amraser See was a shallow lake fed by groundwater, the Aldranser Bach and a canal from the nearby Sill River (which joins the Inn a bit further on.) It was maintained for the royal fisheries when Innsbruck was a royal seat of power.

(Photo from Amraser Bote, June 2008 Issue)

An inn was first built near the lake in 1648, and stayed in business until about 20 years ago. The whole area was redeveloped in the early 90s, and apartment buildings stand there now, near the entrance to the autobahn. The “island” on the middle of the lake now holds a shopping center (DEZ.) Until all this construction, the lake had been slowly drying up over the years, but reemerged after exceptionally heavy rains. I believe the top photo was taken in 1985, when several parts of town had flooded.