Innsbruck - Golden Roof

(Local Name: Goldenes Dachl) The arcaded Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse, lined with handsome burghers' houses, enters the Old Town quarter from the south and makes straight for the famous Goldenes Dachl, the "Golden Roof", which is every tourist's first objective. This magnificent Late Gothic oriel window roofed with gilded copper tiles was built in 1494-96 to commemorate Maximilian I's marriage to Bianca Maria Sforza and served as a box from which the court watched civic festivities in the square below. The house behind, completely rebuilt in 1822, was previously a ducal palace (the Neuer Hof), formed by the conversion, at some time after 1420, of two earlier burghers' houses. The lower balustrade is decorated with