The giant chess
Child-height pieces played by passers-by.
Burkhard Mücke — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Burkhard Mücke — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Sjaak Kempe from Groningen, The Netherlands — CC BY 2.0 · Burkhard Mücke — CC BY-SA 4.0
Start at the Triumphal Arch and walk north up Maria-Theresien-Strasse with the mountain view ahead, then into the old town for the Golden Roof and the Helblinghaus, then the Hofburg, the Hofkirche and the Folk Art Museum, and finish in the Hofgarten. The whole route is on foot within about a kilometre, and takes a comfortable half day, or a full one if you go into the museums.
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The Hofgarten extends north-east of the Hofburg palace in central Innsbruck, and is the largest green space in the centre — mature trees, lawns, ponds and paths, with the Nordkette mountains rising directly behind. Its history goes back to the fifteenth century, when it was a kitchen and pleasure garden for the archducal court. In the sixteenth century it became a Renaissance garden with geometric beds, then was redesigned in the nineteenth in the English manner: curving paths and free groups of trees instead of straight ranks, which is its present form. Its use today is entirely local: people from Innsbruck come to sit, read and run, and at its southern end a giant chessboard with pieces as tall as a child is played on by passers-by, one of the city's familiar sights. The garden is free and open, and combines naturally with the neighbouring Hofburg and Hofkirche.
Child-height pieces played by passers-by.
Mountains directly behind the trees.
Rennweg, 6020 Innsbruck