Linz sits on the Danube like a working city that has learned to dress for dinner. For most of the twentieth century it was an industrial town, famous for its steelworks and chemical plants, and for being the place people drove through on the way to somewhere better. Then it reinvented itself as a centre of media art, with the Ars Electronica Center on the north bank and a string of modern buildings along the river, and in 2009 it was a European Capital of Culture. About two hundred thousand people live here, making it the third city of Austria.
History is layered. The Romans had a fort called Lentia on this bend in the river, and the Habsburg emperor Friedrich III held court here in the fifteenth century. Johannes Kepler taught at the school in Linz and worked on his third law of planetary motion while living in the city in the 1610s and 1620s, and Mozart wrote his Linz Symphony in a few days in 1783 while staying as a guest. Anton Bruckner was organist at the old cathedral, and the concert hall on the river bears his name. The Linzer Torte, a latticed almond and redcurrant tart, is among the oldest named cakes in the world, and every cafe in town will have it.
For a motorcyclist, the interest is in the roads out of town. East along the south bank, you ride into the Danube limes, the line of Roman forts and watchtowers, passing places such as Enns, with its Roman and medieval remains, and Wallsee, with its castle above the river. North across the bridge, the land rises into the Mühlviertel, a quiet granite plateau of woods, farms and winding lanes, almost empty of tourists. The Pöstlingberg, with its twin-towered pilgrimage church, is reached by one of the steepest adhesion tramways in the world and gives a fine view of the river and the Alps.
Fuel is straightforward, with stations on every approach. Go in May or September when the days are warm and the riverside meadows are open, and keep an eye on city traffic and tram tracks, which are slippery in the wet.