Linz or Melk

Linz is a city with very little to offer the tourist. Melk is a small town in the wonderful Wachau valley and home to a world famous abbey. Melk for the win.

I visited Melk Abbey last fall. The guided tour was well done and the grounds quite pretty.

Melk. Tour the abby, then have dinner at Hotel Zur Post - I had a surprisingly fantastic meal there.

Hi,

Between the two my vote is Linz. Melk is closer to Vienna, I did a day trip there from Vienna in 2014, much prefer Linz. Linz can also be visited as a day trip, start early, much more interesting as a province capital.

Hi Shelley,

I am planning a trip to Austria and we considered Linz as well. Ultimately we're skipping it, but I found some cool things to see/do in the area if it is helpful. (By the way, we are biking from Melk to Krems, so we're seeing Melk and the Valley, but also skipping the Abbey as we're visiting the one in Admont earlier in our trip).

--Ars Electronica Center https://www.aec.at/center/en/
--Towers around Linz/Danube: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turmbefestigung_Linz
--NW of LInz (about an hour): http://www.baumkronenweg.at/baumkronenweg.html
--Cider Trail - in the fall http://www.austria.info/uk/things-to-do/food-and-drink/cider
--S of Linz - Math Tower - https://stift-kremsmuenster.net/tourismus/information-in-english/english/

And of course, there's the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp.

Enjoy!

Melissa

Oh, and one other, the Modern Art Museum in Linz looks fabulous (although if you're in Vienna, you've got a thousand to choose from there).

http://www.lentos.at/html/en/index.aspx

Linz is a city with very little to offer the tourist.

Linz is very underrated from a touristic point of view. You must discover its beauty and its secrets.

The town was generally viewed as purely industrial for decades, because Austria's largest steel mill is there.

I would say that Linz is worthy of a visit from someone as part of a second or third trip to Austria. One cannot compare it to Melk for a one day visit.

Thank you all for your insight. Time being a factor we are going with Melk. We will not be driving this portion of our trip.