At lower altitudes, farmers log pine trees, plant crops and harvest hay for winter fodder.
The central section of the Brenner Pass covers a four-lane motorway and railway tracks connecting Bozen/Bolzano in the south and Innsbruck to the north.
It took the "eastern" route through the Puster Valley and descended into Veldidena (modern-day Wilten), where it crossed the Inn and into Zirl and arrived at Augsburg via Füssen.
The Alamanni (Germanic tribe) crossed the Brenner Pass southward into modern-day Italy in 268 AD, but they were stopped in November of that year at the Battle of Lake Benacus.
[4] During the High Middle Ages, Brenner Pass was a part of the important Via Imperii, an imperial road linking the Kingdom of Germany north of the Alps with the Italian March of Verona.
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa made frequent uses of the Brenner Pass to cross the Alps during his imperial expeditions into Italy.
[citation needed] At the end of World War I in 1918, the control of the Brenner Pass became shared between Italy and Austria under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919).
The Treaty of London (1915) secretly awarded Italy the territories south of the Brenner Pass for supporting the Entente Powers.
During World War II, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass to celebrate their Pact of Steel on 18 March 1940.
Following World War II, the pass once again formed the border between Italy and the newly independent Republic of Austria, and maintained its importance as a key trade route.
After the signing of the Schengen Agreement in 1992 and Austria's subsequent entry into the European Union in 1995, customs and immigration posts at the Brenner Pass were removed in 1997.