The Danube as it passes through Linz : the red arrow pointing out the city marina on the outskirts of town.  It was a heft walk on a very hot afternoon. 

A map of the Old Town

Our first Austrian Lock, we were given a “rules and regulations” book and told life jackets must be worn while working in the lock.  All I could get out of it was “right ticket” but he was saying “life jacket.”  Luckily Mary studied German so can understand most of what we need to know. 

There’s lots of ways to get any place, but Rick and Mary had different recollections of their visit in 2011 so we stopped to ask directions. 

A Chaplin-esque street performer makes balloon creatures. 

Light and shadow; historic and contemporary an interesting mix.

I didn’t see a plaque for Beethoven, but I did find one for Franz Schubert and the very young Mozart. 

Schubert was a visitor to Linz in 1819, 1823, and 1825.

The Unfinished Symphony came to my mind though NPR didn’t pick that as his most famous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mnrHf7p0jM  has one rendition that I definitely recognized

   Franz Schubert may be the least understood of the great composers. For decades after he died in 1828, at the age of thirty-one, most of Schubert’s work was unknown. And when hundreds of Schubert’s compositions were first published in the late 1800’s, romantic legends about the composer suddenly became popular. Schubert was often described as a tortured but amiable genius–a nearsighted, portly cherub of a man who lived in abject poverty and found comfort only in a glass of wine.

As with many aspects of history, the truth is more complex. Schubert certainly had a difficult life, but he appears to have been happy simply to create music. He once said "I have come into the world for no purpose but to compose."

Ever since Schubert’s death, historians and musicologists have looked for clues to his musical genius in his bohemian lifestyle, his prolonged illnesses, and even the dozen or so houses in Vienna were he lived. Commentator Thomas Kelly made the pilgrimage in search of Schubert, and found a certain unevenness in how modern Viennese treat the memory of the great composer. Schubert’s birthplace is now a museum, but the house where he died is now a Volkswagen repair shop. Kelly suggests that the Volkswagen corporation might want to use as a theme song one of Schubert’s most famous melodies: "Das Wandern," or "The Rover," from his song cycle, "Die schoene Mullerin."

http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/milestones/991208.motm.schubert.html

Our second beer joint had a plaque hidden behind the white umbrella

Mozart and October 1762 are all that I can understand even with google translate. 

During Mozart’s youth, his family made several European journeys in which he and  Nannerl  performed as child prodigies.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart#Early_life

In late July of 1783, Mozart and Constanze Weber, who had been married in Vienna in August of the previous year, to the great displeasure of Mozart’s father, made their way to Salzburg. The principal aim of the trip was to bring about a reconciliation between father and son, which happened to a degree – but not to the degree of Leopold accepting Constanze into the bosom of the family. Wolfgang’s sister Nannerl – who found Constanze “unsuited to her brother,” for whatever reasons – remarked in her diary that on October 23 a mass by Wolfgang was performed in the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, the “Great” Mass in C minor, K. 427, large parts of which Mozart had composed earlier in Vienna, but had brought with him to Salzburg unfinished and had been unable to complete even there (or anywhere else, ever). Constanze, it should be noted, sang the exacting, high-lying first-soprano solos.

On their return trip to Vienna, the couple spent several days in Linz, at the invitation of an old family friend, Count Thun-Hohenstein. “When we reached the gates of the city,” Wolfgang wrote to this father on October 31, “we found a servant waiting there to drive us to Count Thun’s, at whose house we are now staying. I really cannot tell you what kindnesses the family is showering on us. On Tuesday, November 4, there will be an academy [concert] in the theater here and, as I have not a single symphony with me, I am writing a new one at breakneck speed.” The first performance of this new symphony, which has since been given the nickname “Linz,” took place as scheduled.

http://www.laphil.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwxNp-LzDYo

I definitely prefer the Schubert!

Can’t you just hear the Budweiser  tune……

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwxNp-LzDYo   “Here Comes the King” with words

http://www.stltoday.com/  is the instrumental ball park version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osKJwQO5-iE&feature=kp   Sonny and Cher take off “When You Say Love.”

“The main street "Landstraße" leads from the "Blumauerplatz" to "Taubenmarkt" (Pigeonmarket) near the main square.  In the middle of the main square the high "Pestsäule" ("plague column", also known as "Dreifaltigkeitssäule" (Dreifaltigkeit means Holy Trinity)) was built to remember the people who died in the plague epidemics.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linz

Some folks I found interesting….

They rinsed their face and arms in the fountain do I walked over and did the same thing.  It was very hot.

Lovely “real red” hair

Ever see  the blog http://advancedstyle.blogspot.co.at/    The woman in black with her white hair, sun glasses and wonderful outfit would fit right in.

Hallway to the art college

http://www.lentos.at/html/en/    covered entirely with the words lenoskunstmuseum  written in the glass.  We only had the time to pass by. 

Some outdoor sculpture along the river

From this angle it looked like a person sun bathing

With mostly no trees along the way it was almost too hot to enjoy the walk back to the boat.

Two ways to enjoy life , reading and painting.  Are they aware of each other?

The artist had her original drawing in the small book she refers to while painting the wall art. 

I don’t love it, but love the idea she’s doing it.  Taking the Alternative Art Walking Tour in London really opened my eyes to street art.