A Wander in Linz, Austria

One brisk spring evening aboard the River Beatrice, after several days of guided day trips along the Danube, we decided that an amble without an agenda would make a pleasant change. While most of the other passengers intended to spend the next day visiting Salzburg, we resolved to putter around our port of Linz instead.

Linz is Austria's third-largest city, and we knew very little about it aside from Mozart's eponymous symphony, and its unfortunate associations with the Third Reich (Adolf Hitler spent much of his childhood here).

We had read that the city had built some flashy new museums recently, and in 2009 it had been declared one of two “European Capitals of Culture” (along with Vilnius in Lithuania), a year-long honorarium that entitled the city to a generous dollop of European Union monies. And we were also aware that Linz was the birthplace of Linzertorte, a delicious tart with a ground hazelnut crust and a raspberry jam filling, made from a recipe dating to 1653.

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