AS I DROVE IN to Bad Gastein, I could see the A place laid out in front of me like a diorama. Set in Austria's Hohe Tauern mountains, it spread across a valley and climbed up two vertiginous hillsides. At the top were tall Belle Époque buildings, with Art Nouveau and older houses sitting below them, and the roaring Bad Gastein Waterfall at the heart of it all. It all resembled the set of a Wes Anderson film-the former Grand Hôtel de l'Europe, in the center of town, is a dead ringer for the Grand Budapest Hotel.
A few years ago, I started to hear about Bad Gastein from art-world friends in Berlin, where I live. They told me this small, quirky town-already an established skiing and hiking destination had become a haven for creatives from around Europe and was trying to foster an independent artistic scene on par with what was happening in Joshua Tree, California, or Marfa, Texas. Last July, I finally set out to see it for myself.
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