LInz, Austria

On Friday, we toured the town of Linz, Austria. Linz was once an industrial city, plagued by pollution. Today, that industry has become technology, and it is a very clean city. Our guide took us first to their new Concert Hall near the rail station. The location was chosen to be the city’s “living room”, similar to our Pioneer Square in Portland. It is a park and a gathering spot. The concert hall is immense, built five years ago, with, of course, the best technology. The seats have screens with translated subtitles, plus the menu to choose your drink for the intermission! We saw the main stage and its backstage, the orchestra rehearsal hall, an improvisation concert hall, and other small performance areas than can be closed off, or opened to a lounge and bar area.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral (lot of St. Stephens on this tour) is filled with windows that tell the cultural and political history of Linz and Austria.

We then walked to a nearby coffee shop to try the famed Linzer torte, which was not what I was expecting. It is more of a cinnamon coffee cake. We also had coffee.

The coach picked us up to take us about 25 minutes up into the hills to a cider farm. The owner served us two ciders, one pear/apple and the other pear. He also distillés schnapps from apricots, cherries and walnuts, which we sampled. The cherry was our favorite. They served us lunch, a plate of ham, roast pork, boiled eggs (the yolks are ultra-yellow because the hens eat dandelions!), lettuce, tomatoes, two cheeses, potato salad, pickles, onions, horseradish. All of the foods are from the farm, which has goats and rabbits, and several bee hives. Canola (rapeseed) grows on the nearby fields, and is a bright yellow now.

We asked our guide if Austria exported any products to America. She said, “Yes, we exported a fellow from the town next to where I was born. His name was Arnold Schwarzenegger. :)

Only one more full day on the ship. Tomorrow we go to Passau, Germany.