Linz and beyond – 4th week of October 2003

Fall color near Linz

We slept along the Danube on Sunday night, a beautiful mountainous stretch that glittered with the reds, oranges, and purples of Fall. The river was very green. Wasn’t it Strauss that immortalized the Danube in his waltz “The Blue Danube”? Blue? I don’t know what he was thinking.

The path along the river was remarkably deserted. There were one or two small villages on the other side of the river, but they were few and far between. The scenery changed greatly the following day. It went from being mountainous to being very flat. The route had nothing of interest, either in the landscape or villages. Aside from the river, we saw only a few trees and perhaps two or three people all day long.

We arrived in Linz late that afternoon and decided to find a place to try schnitzel, an Austrian specialty. It’s a breaded veal or pork cutlet. Along the way, we were stopped by a man named Peter who had taken a similar trip the year before throughout Mongolia and Asia. Peter took us to a schnitzel restaurant and had a drink with us.

We slept within the city limits that night, on a little path not far from the river. It was very cold, and everything was wet with condensation when we woke up the next morning.

We visited the city the following day. The farmer’s market disappointed us. We had expected something on a larger scale, but there were only four or five stalls. We watched the Christmas tree being put up in the town square. And we visited the large Gothic-style cathedral, that although was not beautiful from the outside, was lovely on the inside. Many of the vivid stained glass windows depicted stories of the history of the town. In fact, the magnificent windows covered the whole of the church – I counted 88! The windows at the front of the church were different in style – geometrical in design and mostly asymmetrical. The design on some of the windows looked like little amoebas swimming around. It was as if the front altar was flooded with bright orange and yellow amoebas.

Picnic overlooking the valley

We lunched at the top of the city, at a lookout point which gave us an excellent view of the river valley and the city with its church steeples. There were the remains of an old fortress, now so overgrown with vines that we had trouble finding the narrow windows which had served as lookout points for the guards who had protected the city. In a couple of years, the walls will no longer be visible. Before leaving Linz, we tried a raspberry and almond pastry – the Linzer torte – in one of the bakery shops. Good, but perhaps a little too sweet.

We spent several hours trying to leave the city. We couldn’t find the little bridge that we saw on our map. So we took a long detour and visited the industrial quarters. A lot of smoking, billowing plants and gray factories. Served to remind us that there is more than one face to every town.

It had been a week now or more since we had been pedalling non-stop, and our legs were starting to feel it. Stephane was afraid he had tendonitis of the knee, and as for me, although I had no knee problems, I could only pedal at half the speed I was going the previous week. We could go no farther. We decided to stay at a guesthouse because the prospect of staying two days in the tent in freezing weather was not a welcoming prospect.

We stayed in a little town called Mauthausen – what a luxury! Heating, and a private bath and shower. Plus an Austrian breakfast: tea, juice, warm rolls, meat and cheese. We spent three days pampering ourselves, staying warm in front of the TV watching CNN and BBC. Also, in German, I saw “Little House on the Prairie,” a modern-day “Donald Duck” cartoon, and a Halloween show on how to carve your pumpkin and prepare a Halloween meal. We called home and Stephane left spooky Halloween messages for all our favorite little kids at home.

In fact, although Halloween is celebrated in Austria, it is not celebrated in the same way as it is in the United States. It has mostly to do with carving your pumpkin and setting it outside your house. The children don’t go trick-or-treating like at home. What a shame – I was hoping to see the children dress up in costumes.

I was also hoping to see Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on MTV for Halloween, but if they showed it, we didn’t see it. As for all the Halloween movies, they were all in German, so we stuck with the BBC.