Saturday, April 7, 2007

Walking Tour in Linz - Part I



Linz, as many other cities in Eruope, has tour guide service. It is not easy to be a tour guide. They have to pay for the training program and pass the exam. I do not have time to chat with our tour guide in Linz, but last time when I was in Paris, we had a Parisian tour guide. He said that they had to learn not only the Franch history, but also history of the city, architecture, fine arts, etc. When walking on the street, they had to introduce to their guest what styles the buildings were; when in a museum, they had to know who the painters were, what the stories were behind these amazing works, the list went on.


Our tour guide is a nice lady who speak fluent English. We meet her at the Trinity Column. This column was built in 1723. Click here to learn more about the column.


After a brief introduction, we start walking uphill. It seems like we graduate students are extremely lack of exercise, and it makes us breathless just to climb up that little hill, ha-ha.



We stop at a brown, normal house. This is where Anton Bruckner went to school and trained to be a theacher. Bruckner was borned in Ansfelden, a village near to Linz. Latter he came to Linz and played organ here in Alter Dom (old cathedral) and Stadtpfarrkirche (city parish church). He spent 13 years (1855 ~ 1868) here in Linz, and latter moved to Vienna. Bruckner is very important to Linz. The concert hall is named after him (Brucknerhaus), a univeristy (Anton Bruckner Universität), and an orchestra (Bruckner Orchestra), too.

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