We visited Linz

Today, I am going to talk to you about the city of Linz. It is the third biggest city in Austria, even though in reality cities like Salzburg seem like they are triple the size of it, or at least of the historic centre. We were in Linz for a couple of hours because it was the halfway point to our end destination: Hallstatt. We decided to stop here to make the trip more enjoyable, and honestly, it was a complete success.

Generally, I like finding out information about the cities that I visit, mostly before going to them. A fact that could surprise you is that Hitler wasn't born in Germany, he came from a small village called Braunau am Inn, very close to Linz.

In life, there are big contradictions, and the history of Hitler with this city could be one of them. Sociopath, criminal and dictator, Hitler always had a soft-spot for Linz, where he spent his infancy and part of his adolescence. When he rose to power, he wanted to put in place a project to convert this small city into the cultural centre of Tercer Reich. He couldn't carry out 100 percent of his plan, but it is true that a big part of Linz's development was due to his investment.

In the historic centre, the best thing is Hauptplatz, the main square and its affluent streets. All of these buildings are different coloured and all very muted, painted in pastel colours, giving them some harmony. The majority of these buildings have the same height and a similar kind of architecture. As well as that, you can also find the old cathedral and right in the city centre is the Saint Trinity Column, which the tram, pedestrians and cyclists go around. It is a square with a lot of life, dynamic, where there is constant movement of both tourists and locals. In addition to that, it is full of ice-cream shops and it has a great range of restaurants. The time that we visited this square was the best time to, in my opinion. It was that typical summer light at 7pm. At that time, everything looked more pretty. The colours are warmer, the temperature is less hot and the light is beautiful. From this square, you can take public transport to go to Postlingberg, from where you can get a view of the whole city of Linz.

We ate in a restaurant called “Il Gusto”. It was an Italian restaurant which was right in the main square, but on one of the little streets which led towards it. Normally, the ones which are in Hauptplatz are more expensive than the ones in the connecting streets. We ate like kings. We ordered pizza, carbonara and also a salad. For dessert, pannacotta and tiramisu. The atmosphere was relaxing and the decoration was quite great. The only negative was that the service was a little slow and they charged us 2.50 euros for a bottle of water. Take a look.

Near to Hauptplatz, is the Danube river. When you travel through Europe you will realise how large and big this river is, since it seems to us like no matter where we go, the Danube is always there, it's never out of sight. A walk over the different bridges and the riverbank is definitely worth it, especially when it turns to night.

In addition to the old cathedral, which reminds me quite a lot of buildings in Bratislava, 5 streets away from here you can find The New Cathedral "Mariendom", which is really big and pretty in a gothic style. It is also surrounded by restaurants which offer great views.

As for the parking, when we went there it was Friday so we could find free parking right in the centre, since it was later than 6pm. If you go at the weekend, parking is completely free for 24 hours.

When we looked for accommodation in Linz, they all seemed really expensive to us and also, we were only going to stay there for a night. So, we decided to go further out from Linz and sleep in a town called Turkstetten. It was 25km from Linz so as we we had a car, we didn't mind. We only paid 12 euros for the accommodation, which was an Airbnb. The beds were really comfy, the rooms and the bathroom were really spacious and the kitchen was very comfortable. In the morning, we got up and we ate pancakes. We were surprised with the views that we had from the room, since in the distance you could see a church, presiding over a small town which was in the mountains. In the surrounding area, there were typical Austrian houses and the rest of it was nature. If this weren't enough, the owner who looked after us was super nice. He welcomed us at 11pm without complaining and he was very kind to us. The only thing he told us we had to do was to take off our shoes at the front door and he gave us little shoes to walk around the house in. Very kind. This accommodation couldn't have worked out for us better in terms of both price and quality.

In conclusion, the same as what happened with a lot of other Austrian cities, further than Vienna, Linz surprised me for the better, especially when you go there with no expectations. Those places that you would have never have gone to, but after having been there once, you want to go back. And that is the post for today. Thank you for reading this post, and I will see you soon with more content on Austria.

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