Innsbruck

Few towns stand so tightly under a limestone wall. Innsbruck sits at 574 metres and the range to the north rises at once to 2,637, so the route sets peaks beside buildings: Ambras Castle, the Golden Roof, the cathedral and the Hofburg next to the Hafelekarspitze, the Brandjoch peaks, the Solstein and Frau Hitt.

Maximilian I's tomb in the Hofkirche is empty. He died at Wels in 1519 and lies at Wiener Neustadt, his heart at Bruges; his grandson Ferdinand I had the church built from 1553 to 1563 purely to house the monument. Of the forty bronze figures planned, twenty-eight stand there, two after designs by Albrecht Dürer. And the Kleiner Solstein, at 2,637 metres, is 96 metres higher than the Grosser Solstein. No source explains the names.

The Golden Roof, laid between 1497 and 1500 with 2,657 fire-gilded copper shingles, was a viewing box rather than a roof; the original reliefs are in the Ferdinandeum, closed for rebuilding until 2027. Ferdinand II bought Ambras in June 1564, and his cabinet of curiosities is the only Renaissance collection still in its original rooms. The Triumphal Arch of 1765 carries a wedding on its south face and a death on its north: Francis I died thirteen days after his son's marriage.