A Weekend in Linz

Mr Paula and I visited friends overnight, which was exciting since we are not very close friends and staying over night at someone else's place ... well probably some of you say this nothing unusual.

We enjoyed the time we spent with the young family (Baby T is 11 months old) and left them sunday morniing for a few hours, so they could take a break.

The city is Linz. It was the European Capital of Culture 2009. They invested a lot in changing the city's image. And guess what, all we wanted to see were the steel-factory premises of the voestalpine. In Austria every kid who attended school in the 1970's saw those educational movies how those furnace in Linz work.They actually invented a genious procedure, the basic oxygen process, which is called LD procedure in german, LD from Linz Donawitz.

Enough with education, on with the tour in the factory premises (5,2 square-km large)

This is inside a buidling dedicated to visitors.

I must have been baking a lot these days, these "ingredients" reminded me of baking ... cookies, not steel!

Though it is an oven, you roll the red-hot-steel like you would roll a dough, only it has 850°. Ouch, hot!

They tell us what we see is only steam, no dirt ...

We were not allowed to take photos inside the buildings but I can assure, it was very impressive, hot and dirty. My Missoni-scarf plus the ankle-long-coat survived the tour without any damages.
I felt a bit bad that we were not willing to catch the "new spirit" of the city but turned out to be industrial-groupies. The view of the steel rolls flattening the red hot steel blocs made me very happy!

After the tour we visited an Advent market, on a hill above the city.
Authentic music played on authentic instruments by men wearing authentic clothes:

There was also time for the Lentos-museum of modern arts:

Photo by Mr Paula, nice capture of the reflection ...

Another picture taken by Mr Paula, what took me so long in the restrooms?

There is a ship in front of the window, because the Danube river is right in front if the building.

4pm, time to take a ride back home to Vienna. After being just 2 days with a young family it feels a bit akward, back at home, sitting in a quiet appartment, no toddler around our feet.