Linz Day 2

Today started slow and got busier and busier! We started out by going to the Brucknerhaus so we could register for the conference and Michael could get some practice time in.  We were told there was Wifi in the building so I dragged my laptop there but....the wifi was so weak it couldn't connect to the internet.  Michael registered and went to the Musikschule to practice with his quartet.  After he'd been gone for a while I realized he left his music in the backpack so I had to go track him down.  Kristin (Robert, one of the quartet members' wife) was also hanging out with me so she accompanied me on the hunt.  The lady in the Brucknerhaus gave us very poor directions to the Musikschile so we ended up wandering around slightly lost.  After about 20 minutes.... we finally found the Musikschule!!!

After the practice, Michael and I headed back to the Old Town to find some lunch stopping at a few interesting points along the way...

The Danube River!

This is the Old Town of Linz.  I love all the old buildings! It's such a neat atmosphere.  The only thing is that the ground floor of all of them is now a restaurant.  If you go down the street outside of the square,  the buildings are now shopping stores.  

We stopped to eat lunch at this Doner and Kebab stand.  It was quite tasty! 

Michael and his first doner with an amazing view!

 We walked around for quite a bit looking at shops and seeing what was around.  After a while we decided to head back to the hotel to drop off some of our junk so we wouldn't have to carry so much. 

Me on the tram!

This poster is in our hotel.  We think she needs to stop drinking lol 

After we dropped our stuff off, we decided to go check out this old church called the Marien Dom.  It is huge! And has some spectacular architecture.

Beautiful stained glass window that I couldn't get to rotate. 

Beautiful high ceiling!

The center of the Church. 

The pulpit area

One of three pipe organs inside the church

His name is Circis!!!

After we left this church, we just walked down the street looking at all the wonderful architecture.  We came up to this next church and thought it would be interesting to compare the architecture and whatnots.  

We decided this church was pretty gaudy with it's decorations.  We never even really saw a picture of Jesus.  We found that very interesting...

After that church, we kept walking and Michael started to feel tired so we decided to stop at this McDonald's to get him some coffee.  It was interesting because the coffee wasn't what he was expecting.  It was more like...hot milk...with a little bit of coffee.  

This McDonald's sells Red Bull and beer! Very different from America! 

 We decided to get off the main street and check out the back roads to see what was back there.  We found yet another church and just stepped inside to take a quick look.

We decided this one was even more gaudy than the last one.  Michael thought it was French. 

 After this we were tired of churches.  We walked back towards the main square because gelato sounded veeeeery good :)

Main Square!

Gelato!

Michael's first gelato!

After we ate our gelato we ventured off to the other side of the river.   Most places seemed to be closed or deserted so it wasn't as much fun.  We did however find a Schnitzel house we are going to try sometime...

Yet another church. 

 We walked along the Danube for a while just taking in the scenery.  It is so beautiful!!

Attempted self portrait

Then someone offered to take out picture for us :) 

 At this point we were pretty tired of walking but still had a lot of time to kill so we decided to get on the tram and just ride it around looking at the town.

Riding the tram!

 As we approached this one stop,  we saw hoards of people in the same area so we decided to get off and check it out.  Boy was it worth it!!! There was a wine festival going on and all the servers were wearing lederhosen and traditional Austrian clothing.  We just walked around looking at everything when a large group of guys in lederhosen came our way.  We were so curious that we stuck around to see what was going to happen.  They got in a circle and started performing traditional German/ Austrian slap dancing to the accordion.  Such a perfect way to end our day!  I don't know what the best part was...watching the group or  the huge smile on Michael's face.  He LOVED it!

 So I totally embarrassed him by asking the group to take a photo with us :) Those crazy American tourists!!

 We rode the tram back home and just got a pizza to take back to the hotel for dinner.  I thought these drinks were named funny :)

Phew! We were exhausted after today.  We walked so much but had such a wonderful day.  Sorry this was such a long post but we did so much! Tomorrow will be shorter :) 

Auf Wiedersehen!