Linz travel guide

From industrial capital to cultural capital

Austria's largest industrial city (pop. 200,000) has unexpectedly retained, in the old town and the surrounding area, much of the charm of bygone days. Linz is on the former terrain of an ancient Roman fort. For Emperor Friedrich III, whose heart is also buried here, it served as a residence city from 1489 to 1493. Johannes Kepler calculated the planetary orbits here, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his Linz Symphony, Adalbert Stifter wrote his great novels "Witiko" and "Indian Summer," and Anton Bruckner, born in nearby Ansfelden, is considered its presiding genius.