Living in a house in the mountains is wonderfully romantic. The scenery, the weather and the light play just as important a role as the history of the region, the house and the people who created it. In this book, we present some different styles of alpine homes: they may be very old, like the early 17th-century granary belonging to a Bavarian church musician, or grandiose like the Renaissance palace owned by a wine producer. Some are as elegant as the Salzburg gallery owner's Baroque villa, or as rustic as the chalet in St. Moritz, occupied by a Munich entrepreneur. All these houses have one thing in common: the view from every window is like a painting, a masterpiece of nature.