Linz

After a day in Passau we set sail down the Danube towards Linz, Austria. I had read that this section of the Danube between here and Vienna used to be so dangerous that there were many church where sailors would pray before setting off to possible death. It is all calmed down now by a lot of locks.

Going through locks still seems like magic to me.

I wondered how they were going to handle talking about history in Linz. It was the biggest town near where Hitler was born. He had a plan to turn Linz into the model city of the Third Reich.

Our walking tour started off fairly light. There is a walking path along the river with lots of large sculptures. These dice were my favorite.

I liked these benches in the middle of the central square. They have built in chargers. Very convenient.

Eventually the tour did talk about the WWII history. These small pillars were just recently added around town. Each has the name of a Jewish person who lived in sight of it and died in the Holocaust. There is a small button by each name that you can press to ring a bell in rememberence of them.

In our free time in the afternoon the husband and I headed to Postlingberg. It is a district on the other side of the river and way up a hill. There is a pilgrimage church there in addition to a zoo and a troll garden.

To get there we muscled our way onto a very crowded two car tram. There were some toddler girls who were sitting on the window ledge behind the husband. One fell onto his head because it was a very bumpy ride. He hopes someday she remembers the strange American man who saved her life with his head. I was a bit offended by the signs that said that all dogs needed to be muzzled to be on the tram. Nemo would not have approved. It took a while but we ended up here.

Turning around you get a great panoramic view of Linz and the Danube.

The church is tiny but ornate. The husband really like a book at the front that had photos and brief biography of all the parishoners who had died to memorialize them.

We had lunch at a little sweet shop between the church and the troll park. We walked over to the troll place but it looked like an amusement park type place for kids. You had to pay to go to see for sure so we didn’t.

I’m glad we ventured out to get the experience of Austrian public transportation. It was fun even just for the people watching. We rode the tram back and then wandered back through the city to the boat.