The Golden Roof and Maria-Theresien-Straße

The Goldenes Dachl is a balcony rather than a building: an oriel of 2,657 gilded copper tiles added around 1500 so that Maximilian I could watch the square below. It sits at the end of Herzog-Friedrich-Straße, a short crooked lane of arcaded houses in cream, ochre and pale green, and because the lane is narrow the roof reads best from twenty or thirty paces back, with the painted facades funnelling in on it.

Five minutes south, Maria-Theresien-Straße opens up into one of the widest streets in any Austrian old town, with St Anne's column of 1706 standing in the middle of it and the triumphal arch closing the far end. Turn and look north and you get the picture Innsbruck is known for: the street's baroque fronts on both sides and the grey wall of the Nordkette rising straight out of the roofline, snow-covered for a good half of the year.

The lane is in shadow almost all day and the gilding still reads, which makes the Golden Roof one of the few midday-proof frames in the city; the wide street runs north to south, so it takes sun down the middle in the middle of the day and goes soft and even in the last hour. Both are busiest from mid-morning to late afternoon, and the old town empties surprisingly early in the evening.

From mid-November the Christkindlmarkt fills the lane under the Golden Roof with stalls and lights and makes it impassable for a session but wonderful for a walking one; in summer the arcades are full of tables. Both are public streets and need nothing, though café terraces and courtyards are private — ask first.