There was an option today to take the regular tour or an easier tour. We opted the night before to take the easier tour and we glad we did. It was raining and cold – 28 degrees – when we left the ship. The regular tour walked the entire way. The easier tour rode an enclosed trolly from the ship to the center of town. It only took about 15 minutes off the tour but we were in an enclosed trolly and not walking. A definite plus! We did walk back after the tour (no choice) but first thing in the morning, the trolly was much better. The trolly was cute, colorful and dry! The rest of the tour was the same, trolly or walking. They called us the “Fast and Furious Tour”. Silly.
We went to the tourist information office which had an aerial view of Linz on the floor. You could see where we had been, where we were and where we were going. It was pretty interesting. We walked through the courtyard of the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s friend’s home where the Linz Symphony was written by Mozart. I guess you can tell we are somewhat into classical music.
We walked to lots of beautiful buildings, the Linz Castle Museum, the New Cathedral and to the Old Quarter to see Market Hall, the Landaus tower and the city’s main square. Then we walked in the snow back to the ship for lunch.
Later in the day, we walked up to the Linz Christmas Market. There were plenty of food places with gingerbread, lots of Christmas sweets, gluhwein, etc. and lots of Christmas things. Most of this market’s Christmas ornaments were hand made, so beautiful and unique.
We had some gluhwein as well as a huge doughnut that was a lot like a Krispy Kreme doughnut, with an apricot filling – in other words, excellent. We passed lots of coffee shops (which are actually coffee shops, not like in some other European cities) and decided to stop at the oldest one in town the way back to the ship after the market. We had some excellent Cappuccino and espresso and some famous Linz cake. Linz Cake (which will last long enough to send overseas so is frequently sent to soldiers) is believed to be the oldest known cake in the world. It is an Austrian cake with a lattice design on top of the pastry. The cake is named after the city of Linz in Austria. I was expecting it to be very dry but it wasn’t. It had some blueberry preserves on top that were good
