A short break in Linz

Wednesday 1st November was a national holiday here in Austria, because it is All Saints Day in the religious calendar. For the non-religious amongst us, it is also the anniversary of the publication of a deed issued to to Gottschalk, Bishop of Freising by Emperor Otto III, which is the first recorded use of the word Ostarrîchi, the High German name for Austria

From our experience the previous week we knew that wherever we were not much would be open. We decided to head to somewhere different anyway, and picked Linz as our destination. On the Tuesday night I dashed straight from work to the train station, met Claire, and we just made it on the 18:10 from Salzburg to Linz. The journey takes just over an hour.

We'd opted for the dull, safe and cheap option of booking a room in the Ibis hotel that was literally opposite Linz's main station. Whilst it wasn't the most romantic location, it did mean that on Thursday when I would be waking up in Linz and be due at work in Salzburg, we could quickly nip to the trains.

On the Tuesday night we were both pretty tired, but nevertheless went out for a stroll to look for something to eat. We ended up in a pizza restaurant - Pizzeria Verona - on the side-streets near Taubenmarkt. Sadly it was only after we'd set our hearts on our pizza order that we realised that they also did Greek specialities - but we weren't too disappointed, the food was gorgeous.

We didn't get to see much of the city, once we were full we headed back to the hotel without even stopping to check out one of the local bars. Pathetic really, but we had a big day of sight-seeing ahead of us.