June 5: Linz, Salzburg and Viking Cuisine

con­tin­ued from part 4…  Vis­it­ing Linz and Salzburg….

The qual­i­ty of Viking’s Danube Waltz cui­sine is uni­form­ly high. There is always a choice of three or four first and main cours­es, nice­ly bal­anced between meat, fish and veg­e­tar­i­an, with excel­lent soups (and again, there’s no rea­son why you can’t order both a starter and soup). At din­ner, sev­er­al sta­ple items always accom­pa­ny the choic­es: Cae­sar sal­ad, sautéed salmon fil­let and rib eye steak. Meats tend to be over­cooked, so spec­i­fy medi­um-rare if you mean medium—and some are tough, for which there are two solu­tions: send it back and ask for anoth­er (nev­er a prob­lem), or bring your own steak knives (unless they’ve accept­ed our sug­ges­tion that these be provided.)

We woke in Linz and set off on a day’s excur­sion to Salzburg, 90 min­utes away by motor coach. For pas­sen­gers already famil­iar with Salzburg, Viking offers a morn­ing tour of Linz. I leave it to your brows­er to tell you all about these fine cities and will sim­ply state how Viking han­dles Salzburg.

Salzburg magnificence

Morn­ing group walk­ing tours take you to the Old Town, Mozart’s birth­place and Hohen­salzburg Fortress above the city cen­ter. You’re then turned loose for 2 1/2 hours of free time includ­ing lunch on your own. Obvi­ous­ly this can be no more than an ori­en­ta­tion vis­it; you need to come back.

In a few hours there’s enough time for a walk­ing tour, shops and lunch. At mid-day many cafes seem to spe­cial­ize in dessert dish­es. We found one with a very good lunch (touristy prices) but it’s heavy fare. It was 90 in the shade so a cool church was a wel­come respite after­ward. The Old Town is main­ly a shop­ping area for pricey lux­u­ry goods and tschotske. The funic­u­lar up to the Fortress is said to offer a great view and it was much cool­er up there, but at this sched­ule there’d be lit­tle time for much else.

Again in June the crowds are enor­mous; ear­ly autumn might be a bet­ter time for this vis­it. I was not tak­ing pho­tos today but I did snap one of the Mod­ensee, en route from Linz, over­looked by the south­ern alps, filled with sail­boats, a spec­tac­u­lar panorama.

Next: Pas­sau, Germany