2 days ago
Why Innsbruck is more than just snow: what to see year-round
Turn from bustling Marktgraben into pedestrianised Herzog-Friedrich-Straße, lined with medieval mansions in pastel colours and hung with elaborate signs advertising ancient businesses, and your eye will be caught by a patch of brilliance in the distance, which brightens further as you approach the heart of Innsbruck's Altstadt, or Old Town.
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This is the Goldenes Dachl, or Golden Roof, a magnet for photographers in this city in the
Austrian Tyrol, with 2,657 gilded copper tiles forming a steeply sloping roof over a carved and painted oriel window. It was ordered by Emperor Maximilian I in 1497 to celebrate his second marriage, and when completed three years later, it advertised both the stability of his reign and the city's prosperity.
This came both from its silver mines and from its location, where trade routes to
Germany
Italy , Switzerland and beyond met at a crossing over the River Inn – the Inn's Bridge, or Innsbruck. The town now has 15 bridges serving its 130,000 inhabitants.
The colourful facades of historical buildings, backdropped by snow-capped mountains, line the riverfront in the Old Town of Innsbruck. Photo: Shutterstock
Look above and beyond the Golden Roof and you'll see a modern mainstay of Innsbruck's economy, the Nordkette, a string of 2,500-metre peaks that draws skiers from around the world. The mountains dominate the picturesque town, their steep, powder-covered slopes nearly as brilliant in the sunlight as the roof below, and ski runs of assorted difficulty are reached directly from its centre in only half an hour by a combination of funicular railway and cable car.
But when a spring thaw eventually comes, other reasons to visit Innsbruck do not melt away, and there's more than just the Golden Roof to dazzle visitors.
During his long reign (1486-1519), Maximilian chose to live in Innsbruck, nearly 500km to the
west of Vienna , for its strategic location and natural resources.
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The Golden Roof – an addition to an even earlier building – was the royal box from which the emperor and his family viewed entertainment in the square below while making themselves visible to the populace. Below the gleaming tiles, its surfaces are carved and painted with the coats of arms of Maximilian's territories, along with an image of himself placed tactfully between those of his first and second wives. And there are scenes of both courtly life and popular entertainment, such as Morris dancing.
