Linz is Upper Austria’s capital and one of Austria’s most surprising cities: a former steel town that reinvented itself as a UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts without losing its working-town directness. The Ars Electronica Center on the Danube riverbank houses a permanent interactive museum exploring digital art and technology, with the annual Ars Electronica Festival each September drawing international attention. Across the river, the Lentos Kunstmuseum holds an important collection of Austrian modern and contemporary art in a glass building that reflects the water at night. The old town Hauptplatz is one of Austria’s most handsome squares. From Vienna, Linz is 1 hour 15 minutes by fast train; from Salzburg, just over an hour. Two days gives enough time for the main cultural institutions, the Pöstlingberg panorama, and a day trip to the Baroque abbey at St. Florian.
city
Linz
Linz spent most of the 20th century as Austria's industrial capital, a steel and chemical town on the Danube with a difficult World War II history as a city Hitler favored for monumental redevelopment plans.