Postcard from Linz: Art will save the World!

Dear my travellers, Welcome to my new post! A couple of days I got few messages with the same question “When you’re planning to write the new post about your adventure in Linz?!”. I think today is the perfect time to write the last post from this special series of posts from Linz. I will dedicate today’s post to people who live in this beautiful city and the arts surrounding them daily. From the previous posts you learned something new about this city, which you may not have had the opportunity to read by now, but today’s post will be a little different. Before I start I would like to thank you for the support of the Linz Tourist Board – Linz Tourismus which helped me to meet this beautiful city.

The city that has succeeded in a very short time to unite the beauty of art with the beauty of a fast life is precisely Linz itself. The great flourishing of art and the development of culture have helped to raise the city itself in socio-political scales and the city of Linz is in second place after Vienna by the number of all the most important cultural and artistic events taking place in Austria and the high place in Europe as well. In one of the previous posts, you had the opportunity to read that Linz was the European capital of culture a couple of years ago.

I do not know if you have ever had the opportunity to read, hear from someone, or even see for yourself an special action called “Open Piano”. It is a special action that has been carried out across Europe and the world, when in the heart of the city you will find a piano that is accessible to everyone. The aim of this action is to collect help to all refugees who need help for their basic human needs. Medicine has proven that music has a positive impact on health and can help a lot in treating various types of illness. Here, music has received a portable role of savior, which can help the powerless to come to the fulfillment of basic human rights that would otherwise have to be a guarantee for everyone on this planet.

How is this action working? The slogan of this action all over the world is: “Everyone is welcome to play, everyone is welcome to listen, every donation from the heart was more than welcome!”. Everyone who wants to play can play piano, knowledge is not crucial, only good will and strong desire are important here. During this visit, at least two hours a day, the photographer and I spent on the bench just to enjoy the performances.

There were extremely talented people who, beside talent for playing, showed their incredible vocal abilities. One girl was so talented that I thought I was at the music concert of Adele or Celine Dion. An interesting concept that has recaptured some of my childhood memories when I learned to play the piano. I maybe wasn’t talented kid, but I was extremely persistent and hard worker… I did not finish elementary music school, but I carry in the heart of a nice memory on those times.

Linz is a city whose streets are delighted with art and some special elegance. Tourists come from various parts of Europe and the world to explore this gem in the north of Austria. Everyone will bring home some of the story of Linz, a city inspired by many famous historical figures and some personalities that are the inspiration of this 21st century.

This city just “fell for me” for the heart, I do not know if it is because of the exceptional beauty and charm, either because of the close distance of the Danube or the beautiful summer weather that I managed to capture for a moment in this Austrian town. I’m not sure, I do not have a concrete answer! Perhaps this is a combination of all of the above, but I will leave it to you to judge. Would you like to tell me your opinion about Linz? How did you experience it through my stories? Especially I would like to hear the opinions of people who already had the opportunity to visit this city. Simply, I always like to hear the impressions of other people just to know how successful I was in presenting of some city.

Linz is also known as the “City of Peace”. In 1986, the City Council proclaimed the capital of Upper Austria as the “City of Peace of Linz”. The aim of this provision was exclusively to raise social responsibility whose main role was to maintain peace. With the proclamation of the City of Peace in October 1986, the city of Linz undertook to maintain “the longing for peace and commitment to the peace of the people in the city, and that the basic principle of the future of local politics and the stability of community relations is maintained”.

In a conversation with a couple of people who are already the fourth or fifth generation who grew up in Linz, I learned a few interesting things about the way of life in the local community of Linz. Linz is in itself an innovative center of Upper Austria and represents a city of new opportunities.

The quality of life in all spheres of life and a wide range of services make the capital of Upper Austria a perfect place for living. Now, there are over 100,000 apartments available in Linz – a supply of flats that is constantly growing. The primary goal is to create as many people as possible an optimal residential and living environment at affordable prices. Extreme care is taken of people living with minimum income and they are always provided with a basic social assistance and protection package every month.

Their health care system is very well organized and all costs of health services are covered depending on the health fund you choose: state or the private one. It is similar to the health system of Germany, but it is slightly more flexible and has more benefits. It was fun for me to talk to people who live and work in this city and when they heard that I was a blogger who will present Linz on the blog, they wanted to answer on all the questions. I was glad to have had the opportunity to meet wonderful people who showed that Linz was an open heart city. A truly wonderful experience, which I will remember for a long time.

We almost miss the plane, thank God that I always have a responsible person beside myself, since I could listen to the stories for hours. I just love to talk with people. The sun slowly went down, and our visit to this interesting town ended. It was a short but sweet journey. Linz will always have a special place in my heart and I sincerely hope that I will return soon to continue my adventure.

In the end, we had to do a little faster last shooting of the city and run or otherwise we would miss our airport carpool! My photographer has found the right moment to make the perfect last photo in Linz… I do not like separations, it’s hard for me to say goodbye to some city, but I said, “Hi, my dear Linz, I’ll see you again soon!” With these words, I gave my promise to Linz and entered the car. The ride to the airport was much shorter than when we came. I guess there was too much fatigue present and time just flew.

My dear travellers once again we have come to the end of post from Linz. Unfortunately this is the last post from this special series of posts about Linz. Time just flies so fast when you are having a good time! Don’t worry in a couple of days I will publish a new post where we will continue together to enjoy the charms of traveling. Who didn’t read my previous post about Linz, you can read it here.

I would like to say once again thank you to the Linz Tourist Board – Linz Tourismus for the wonderful experience and the hotel Schwärzer Bar for hospitality. It was a journey to remember, and I hope that I showed you this little Austrian adventure in the best possible way. Sometimes the words are just not enough, so I’ll tell you to look at the last photo in this post and my smile will tell you all those words that I have not been able to write in posts about this lovely city.

How do you like this story about Linz?  I would like to hear your opinion! If you have a question, comment, suggestion or message for me, you can write me down in the comments. Of course, as always you can contact me via mail or social media, which you can find on the CONTACT page.

As I promised we’ll see again in a couple of days, so if something new and interesting happens to me, I promise, I will write to you!

Best,

Mr.M

This post is sponsored by Linz Tourist Board – Linz Tourismus and Schwarzer Bär Hotel from Linz.

For all these beautiful photos I used Sony Alpha 7r Mark II camera.