There’s nothing better to get you in the mood for Christmas than the beautifully decorated stalls of a romantic Christmas market, a glass of punch with a cranberry Kiachl pastry, and festive tunes played by a traditional brass band. Adding to Jacob’s tips for Innsbruck’s festive markets, here’s my selection of romantic Christmas markets in Tirol. Merry Christmas!

Winter in Tirol begins with bells, banging and bizarre beings roaming the streets. Every year at the start of December, the devilish “Krampus” strikes fear into the heart of children. This centuries-old tradition is today more popular than ever.

Tiroleans mark the longest day of the year by lighting fires in the mountains. One of the areas with the most spectacular summer solstice celebrations can be found at the Zugspitze mountain. The tradition of summer solstice fires dates back many centuries and is today included on the UNESCO Cultural Heritage List.

Perched on a hilltop high above Inntal Valley for half a millennium, this imposing Renaissance-style castle has been built by the Taenzl Brothers around 1500. To honour their clients, the House of Habsburg, they erected ornate Habsburg Hall with a wall painting that depicts the enormous family tree of Habsburg. Later, the Fugger Family, a wealthy dynasty of merchants from Augsburg, acquired Tratzberg Castle and expanded it further. Proof of those changes is the splendid Fugger Parlour and the Fugger Chamber. Most of the now conserved inventory is from this time. In the early 19th century, the castle was plundered by Bavarian soldiers. Some 50 years later, the rather neglected estate came into the possession of the Enzenberg Family, and it has stayed their homestead since then. Thanks to the family’s dedication and efforts the castle became the very embodiment of a 16th century Tirolean castle. Ulrich Goëss-Enzenberg and his wife Katrin Goëss-Enzenberg have been living here since 1991 and have opened parts of the castle, their family home, to the public.

Each of us has a handful of great Christmas memories as a child: the sparkling star on top of the Christmas tree; the fun afternoons we spent out with our fathers, as the Christkind had to put up the tree at home; the favourite Christmas carol; the air effervescent with scents of the season …

On Christmas Eve 1818, a song was born that would wing its way into the hearts of people throughout the world. Now translated into hundreds of languages, “Silent Night! Holy Night!” is sung by untold millions every December – but how did this particular tune come to achieve such popularity? Here are ten surprising (and some weird) facts about the world’s most ubiquitous Christmas carol that celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2018.

Upon the end of his life, Emperor Maximilian I (1459 – 1519) was obsessed with death. He envisioned a grand tomb, fit for an Emperor, surrounded by life-size statues of his ancestors, real and mythical, lining his grave in a mock funeral procession. As work on the ornate black marble tomb progressed, it became apparent that it would not fit into the castle chapel in Wiener Neustadt where Maximilian wished to be buried.

The Wildspitzbahn on the Pitztal Glacier is at 3,440 metres above sea level the highest cable car in Tirol. Nowhere else in Austria can passengers travel as quickly and comfortably into the realm of eternal snow and ice. However, building and operating a cable car at this altitude is a huge technical and logistical challenge requiring innovative solutions.

Many people imagine that a mountain hut consists of nothing more than a wooden shack with an outhouse. This preconceived notion is nonsense, of course, as these Alpine Association lodges well demonstrate. Some are so beautiful that they are listed as historical monuments; others inspire with their sustainable and modern construction: in other words, first class architecture.