Traveling is awesome in large part due to unexpected events, and since I’m the kind of person who spends a lot of time planning and researching and in general attempting to eliminate the unexpected, I like to think that traveling is healthy, even therapeutic, for me. This is a line of thinking that can only be pursued after the fact though, because finding out on day 2 of your 6 day bike trip that late June in Upper Austria contains more than a slight possibility of rain is anything but therapeutic.
The upside of a quasi-rainy day on a bike trip, however, is that you don’t have to worry about getting too hot. Another larger and more important upside of summer rain is that edible crops grow! Our second day biking took us out of the mountains and into farmland, some of the most beautiful farmland I’ve ever seen:
But before you write Upper Austria off as a place filled with quaint farming villages (which it is), consider these people, taking an assumably epic Segway tour of the city of Linz:
I wonder if they made it over to see the “martin luther church”
which was about 1/20 the size of (and about 20 times more charming than) the neighboring catholic church. Growing up in the pacific northwest, I tend to root for the underdog, which may explain why I was drawn to this little protestant church in a heavily catholic region. Or maybe I just liked it for its simplicity.
Not everything in Linz was quite so serene…an outdoor concert of “classic music” the night before meant that our conversation over lunch in the main square was had in conjunction with a construction crew with heavy machinery noisily taking down the stands and stage. Still, the food (and company) was excellent:
Before leaving Linz, we crossed the river and took a newly-rebuilt tram to Postlingberg, climbing 255m at an average 6% grade in less than 20 minutes. The track gauge has recently been adjusted from 1m to 0.9m, and that meant new cars, which meant new instructive signage. I especially like the guy on the far right.
The rest of the day involved biking and eating and getting passed by small-ish pelotons (which I think is probably more fun than trying to keep up with them).
Enjoyed this blog immensely, particularly the “epic segue tour” line. Looking forward to more tour posts.
I hadn’t really noticed the title to this post, so it took me by complete surprise to recognize the plaza with the Segwayers (I squealed a little bit)! I spent almost a week in Linz last summer for the Ars Electronica festival, and that’s right across the street from the Ars Eletronica Center (not the main venue, but a cool museum). I’m surprised and impressed that you found good vegetarian food there; David and I had the worst pizza of our lives just around the corner from the Segway plaza, and one night I was actually reduced to eating at MacDonald’s; at least they had salad!
@Cerise we really looked around to find our restaurant, although it was actually right on the main square, but I definitely remember Linz as a “no-restaurant-looked-good” kind of town. I’m guessing Ars Electronica is much different (and much cooler) than Electronic Arts – sounds like a cool festival!