Linz – not quite a chocolate box

---

Lads and lassies – now in Linz in Austria for the night before off to Salzburg. Got a VW shuttle bus here from Cesky Krumlov in about 1hr 15mins. I was in fact the only passenger, but he picked up 2 Japanese to take back to Krumlov at the station when he dropped me. Gave him the rest of my CZ crown coins as a “tip” since I was the only passenger down.

A relatively simple walk to the hotel Schillerpark – right next to a casino so difficult to tell where the hotel entrance actually was. Sorted out the wifi and booked my next 2 nights in Salzburg before I went out. It is close to a lot of shops on Landstrasse and could not work out why it looked like Sunday and virtually none, other than gelato stalls, were open. Guy at the hotel later told me it was the public holiday of Pentecost (i.e. 50 days after Easter Sundays) called the Whitsunday holiday in UK. Observed in most of Europe such as France, Austria etc – but strangely enough not in Italy Wiki tells me.

Did some basic checking on the web, and expected the 2 museum/sights I wanted to see to be closed on Monday accdg to LP guide. But Lentos art museum was open til 6pm so walked down to the river and found it on the closest back (the other attraction the Ars Electronica centre is just on the other side of the river Danube). Annoyingly they are about to have a major Gilbert & George exhibition on, but this does not open until Friday, darn it. Blagged my way in as a senior – 4.50E rather than 6.50E – I was merely asking what the age was and they sold me a senior one and they did not ask for proof of age (on the basis no one would claim to be that old??). Depsite absence of Gilbert & George had an exhibition of the 111 years the gallery has been open – 11 rooms representing each of the decades since 1900. The only almost constant in half of the rooms seemed to be Oscar Kokoscha, who has painted for about 4 decades it seems. The survey was interesting and the artists, although not all Austrian etc, were largely unknown to me.

Out of there at 6pm and it was rather cool so back to the hotel to change to attire more suited than shorts and short sleeved shirt. Got some tips on where to eat from the guy who told me re Pentecost at the hotel as to what would be open – so ate at the large beer gardren/courtyard under trees called Klosterhof – sampled a wheat beer and a gulash soup and a schnitzel type thing, quite good and cheap (not as CZ but still reasonable - $35 all up). Then took the nite pix of the Lentos/Ars Electronica. That’s it – under 500 words!

---

Photos

view to Ars Electronica
with Lentos poster in f'grd?

Comments

[Bob]

Thanks
Hi Mike thanks for the detailed reports. Keep on enjoying your trip