Innsbruck, under the Nordkette

Few cities keep their mountains this close. You walk the length of the old town — past the painted façades and the wrought-iron guild signs — and there, at the end of the lane, the Nordkette simply rises, snow to the ridgeline, close enough to feel the cold coming off it.

At the far end of Herzog-Friedrich-Straße is the Goldenes Dachl, the golden roof: 2,657 fire-gilded copper tiles built to let a Habsburg watch the square in comfort. Five hundred years on it still catches whatever light there is. The whole street is like that — old signs, old inns (one of them advertising anno 1465), still doing the jobs they were made for.

It was the week after Christmas, and the market smell — mulled wine, roasted chestnuts — hung in the cold air. A city that has been getting winter right for a very long time.