Photo spot in Innsbruck
The coloured houses on the Inn at Mariahilf
A row of pink, yellow, green and blue houses standing straight out of the river with the Nordkette behind them — shot from the far bank, and the one Innsbruck frame that needs no ticket, no climb and no timing.
About The coloured houses on the Inn at Mariahilf
Get directionsThe houses along Mariahilfstraße and Innstraße sit on the north bank of the Inn with their backs to the mountain and their fronts in the water, a run of tall narrow facades painted pink, ochre, mint, cream and pale blue. Seen from the opposite bank they stack into a single band of colour, the milky green river in front and the grey rock of the Nordkette rising immediately behind — a whole city in one frame, and the picture Innsbruck sells itself with.
You shoot it from the south side. The Marktplatz embankment and the Herzog-Siegmund-Ufer give the classic straight-on view, and the Innbrücke and the footbridge upstream give angled ones with the river leading in. It is all public riverside path, flat, and open every hour of the day and night.
The houses face roughly south, so they take light for most of the day, and the best of it is the last two hours, when the sun rakes along the row and picks out the colours, and the Nordkette above turns pink for a few minutes after the valley has gone into shade. Overcast flattens the mountain but the colours still carry the shot.
The Inn itself changes with the season and it matters: glacier melt makes it high, fast and opaque milky green from June to August, while in winter it drops and clears to a deep grey-green that reflects the row much better. Snow on the Nordkette behind the coloured fronts is the version most people are hoping for, and it is there from roughly November into April.
Best time to shoot
The last two hours of light; winter for a low, clear river and snow on the mountain
Tips
Shoot from the south bank — the row only reads as a band of colour from across the water. Summer meltwater makes the Inn opaque; winter gives you the reflection.
Other spots in Innsbruck
The Nordkette cable car — Hungerburg and Seegrube
From the middle of Innsbruck to a terrace at 1,905 metres in about twenty minutes: a funicular out of the city, then a cable car onto the Seegrube, with the whole Inn valley laid out below and the Stubai Alps opposite.
The Golden Roof and Maria-Theresien-Straße
Maximilian's gilded oriel closing a narrow medieval lane, and around the corner the wide street that frames the Nordkette between its facades — the old town's two set pieces, five minutes apart.
The Bergisel ski jump terrace
Zaha Hadid's tower on the hill south of the city, with a viewing terrace at the top of the inrun looking straight down the jump and out over Innsbruck to the Nordkette — the city's most dramatic single frame.
Ready to book?
Our concierge team will hand-pick 2-3 photographers who know The coloured houses on the Inn at Mariahilf — free of charge.