When winter truly descends here, it does not flirt with the landscape; it conquers it. The descent of snow is a soft obliteration. It covers the anachronisms of modern life—the parked cars, the tarmac, the street signs—leaving behind a pristine, unbroken white sheet. The castle ruins, normally a jagged scar on the horizon, become soft, silent sentinels. The skeletal trees in the churchyard wear white collars, their branches clicking together like dry bones in the freezing wind.