it was eighty degrees here today, i believe, fyi. but by the end of the week, the rumor is that fall-like weather is actually going to begin.
ok, i realize that it’s been almost a week since i’ve written about austria – when i left off, we’d arrived at our very very tiny room in the hotel in linz. we got out of the room and headed up the mountain, the polstingburg. first, we saw an elk.
an elk?
a deer with horns. a reindeer?
no, not a reindeer.
the view of the city was great from on top of the mountain, except it was getting dark quickly.
also, i was very very tired because the night before i couldn’t sleep and was up for four hours. plus i was very very hungry. so we stopped at the very first little place we saw at the top of the mountain, and had a very delicious dinner. kevin took a picture of us.
it seemed silly to me that kevin was documenting the dinner, but now i wish he’d taken a picture at every place we had a meal. what better way to remember how good it was? because almost all of them were very, very good.
kevin had very delicious spaetzle, which is a kind of german noodle, sort of. i had a great platter of cheese and meat and bread, plus a glass of sturm. have i written about sturm? it’s wine that isn’t entirely wine yet, and it’s only available right after they make the grapes into the wine, in the fall. it’s kind of like hard cider. you kind of pronounce it “storm,” except no matter how i said it, i always had to say it a bunch of times before the person taking my order’s face lit up in recognition.
the meal revived me, and we went to look at the church on the hill.
we went inside, and there was a service going on, so we tried not to be boisterous or disruptive. we didn’t stay there long, and went back out where it was getting chilly.
one more great view.
there was this place on the mountain that i really wanted to see – it was called the Grottenbahn am Postlingberg, and described as a “fairy-tale world for children and adults, whith stories of dwarfs, giants and enchanted princesses.” i feel that from the description it was something that walt disney looked at when planning disneyworld. but it was closed. before we went up the mountain i knew it would be closed, but at least we were near it. next time we’ll go during operating hours. here’s the sign outside the grottenbahn.
we saw another deer with antlers inside a fenced-in area, and a girl standing outside the fence was reaching in petting the deer. very tame.
we took the train back down the mountain – it was an old wooden very historical train, by the way – and kevin saw a GIANT HARE by the tracks. maybe on the tracks. it was ENORMOUS. as big as mollie, our dog. mollie would have been very excited about seeing it.
i missed it, unfortunately.
we got back into linz and there was the Lentos Kuntsmuseum in front of us. it’s a modern art museum made of glass, and at night it’s lit to look different colors. we weren’t going to go in (too tired) but then we decided we might as well. i’d read that they had a lot of klimt art there.
here’s a photo of the museum.
we went in and it was ultra-modern and kind of empty and we asked about klimpt artworks and the woman kind of looked like we were a little crazy, and she asked others working there about klimt. and finally she took us to one measly little black and white sketch. we were disappointed, but we looked around. then we realized that we didn’t like any of the other artwork, so we left. we were probably there about 15 minutes altogether.
outside was a river cruise boat docked for the night, and scads of american tourists were suddenly all over the place. it was a little horrific, even though we really hadn’t been away from home very long. they were older, well-heeled, and they immediately all annoyed me a lot. “bunch of lazy rich pompous americans,” i thought to myself.
we walked down the main street of linz, which was very quiet now, and sat outside at a cafe and had a drink. they were setting up for a huge oktoberfest the next day, and we watched a guy backing a big truck pulling a van. he kept going back and forth, back and forth, and we waited for him to crash into something, but somehow he didn’t.
here’s the street, all lit up, but not a lot of people around, except for the random annoying american tourist.
and here’s our drinks.
and that was it for linz on only our second day of biking.
in the morning we got up and walked our bikes to the linz palace museum.
but right now i have to go to sleep.
HALLOWEEEN IS FAST APPROACHING. or at least our GREAT BIG HALLOWEEN PARTY.
many many things to do this week.
ok ok ok,
sunday night grace.