Small Austrian market town situated 10 miles (16km) south of Innsbruck, and 13 miles (20km) north of the Brenner Pass and the present-day Italian border, in the southwest corner of the Innsbruck region, in the Austrian Tyrol. It has two medieval churches and a shrine, and the part-medieval Trautson Castle (largely destroyed by bombing in 1945) lies on the hill behind the town.

Matrei am Brenner lies on the Sill River, and also on the Brenner railway, both of which run along the Lower Wipp Valley. Matrei is 3 miles (5km) due north of Steinach am Brenner, where Schenker spent his summer vacations in 1907 and 1909 (in 1909 with Jeanette Kornfeld). In 1907 he visited Matrei three times: on July 4 (on foot), on July 6 (by train), and on August 22; on the second of these occasions he recorded his impressions of the town in detail.

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