On December 13th I let myself sleep in a little. I got ready and packed up and left my bags at the front desk of the hotel before heading out. I walked back toward Demel where I intended to have brunch. I walked past the Spanish Riding School and saw some of the Lippizaner Horses.
Hofburg again
When I got to Demel, I could not believe the line! I've been there twice before and never seen anything like this. This became the first time of many this trip where I cursed social media for a making something too popular! Ugh. I eventually secured a place at the little bar and had a hot chocolate and eggs. I intended to have another round of the plum pancakes, but was too full.
I decided to visit the Albertina museum. On the way to the museum I saw the Lippizaner Horses on the move.
At the Albertina museum I enjoyed seeing the Impressionist paintings...
...Habsburg State Rooms. Before becoming a museum, was royal rooms (Marie Antoinette's sister was one of the residents).
I discovered there is a branch of Demel at the Albertina and no lines! Total Demel hack for next time in Vienna!
Saw this on the walk back to my hotel.
I walked back to the hotel and then took a taxi to the train station. I hadn't booked this train ticket in advance because I didn't know how long I'd want to spend in Vienna. I took the 1:30 train that arrived in Linz at 2:45. Don't think I didn't double check that train number 25 times!
From the Linz train station I took a taxi to my hotel. I checked in and then walked straight to the Cathedral.
At the Cathedral they have a market called Advent am Dom. It was a great market! They had a lot of artisan booths and a wide variety of goods.
I bought this pretty pink glass bud vase directly from the artist who made it. She and the other artist she was sharing the booth with were very curious about how I knew to come to Linz and why I was there.
I walked toward the next market and enjoyed the little shops along the way.
You pay €5 to enter the Winterzauber Market, but you get a free drink with your admission. There weren't really booths selling things (only food and drink that I saw). It was crowded, but was super pretty.
After making my way out of that market, I walked to a bakery I had scouted in advance to buy Linzer cookies. I wasn't going to go to Linz and not get the namesake cookies! This was one of the bakeries I had read about. It was super cute.
I didn't eat the cookies until I was back in the room, but they were amazing. I couldn't decide if I was sad or happy that I didn't purchase more!
I walked over to Hauptplatz and around the market there.
I purchase a Linz ornament for my travel tree.
At Hauptplatz I caught the little Christmas train.
Linz has a Christmas train that runs for free between the various markets. I took it out to the Volksgarten market.
I didn't really care for it much (a lot of rides and things), so I did a quick lap and then took the train to Pfarrplatz. There is a market behind this church.
The market at Pfarrplatz is all food and drink so I thought it would be a good place to grab dinner. I had trouble deciding what to have. I decided to try the parmesan truffle fries first.
While I was waiting on the fries to get ready a local really questioned me about why I was there. He said "You shouldn't be here. There are better places! Go to Salzburg! Go to Vienna!". I assure him that I had been to those locations before and I really did want to be here enjoying Linz and that it was worth the visit. After eating the fries I decided I was full so I walked back to my hotel.
Linz had great markets and I loved the "train" transport between the markets. There were certainly other things to do in Linz. There is a funicular up to the top of a hill for example, but it was super foggy when I was there and that wouldn't have been a very pretty view.
I was originally booked at a different hotel, but a week before my trip I realized I needed to rebook a couple of hotels through American Airlines to earn points (that gave me enough points to move from Gold Status to Platinum Status). I chose to stay at the Leonardo Boutique Hotel Linz City Center. It was in a good location and I had stayed at that chain before. I didn't look into it quite as much as I should have and it ended up not have a bar and thus no ice for my knee ice pack, but other than that it was fine for a night.
I didn't take any exterior shots and frankly it wasn't worth even borrowing a picture to show you. Here was my room though. It was a nice size room.
And that's end of my time in Austria. I was moving on to a different country the next morning.
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