Five days, fifteen bands, many miles

1 July 2009

Suzy and I are off on an Austrian adventure tomorrow. And while some lucky people (those who live in Linz, for example) get to just wander down the road to attend the Linz Europe Harbour Festival, for us it’s a bit more of a trek. And because the journey wasn’t grand enough, we’ve now added a bit more hoohah, just to ~~exhaust~~ delight ourselves further.

(You might find it handy to have this map open in another tab or window now.)

The original plan was: Fly to Linz, return a few days later. Simples. Then Ryanair decided to reduce the number/convenience of their flights, so that became: fly to Salzburg at ouch o’clock, take a train to Linz and fly back from that city a few days later.

Then Hubert – I believe on seeing that I was content with my plan – decided he’d do some street concerts around the region in order to give the harbour festival a bit more publicity. He’s already done a number of little street concerts with some of his guest musicians from across Europe this week and on Thursday he’ll be doing the same again.

So instead of landing at Salzburg and getting a train to Linz, to our hotel, where there are beds on which we can lie, we are taking a train to Gmunden. And, I hope, not forgetting to change at Attnang-Puchheim. In Gmunden we will meet up with the musicians and tag along with them to their street gigs in that town and then Hallstatt and Bad Ischl, where there will be a concert in the evening at the local theatre. Then we’ll return to Linz with the band, finally falling into our hotel beds some time after 1am. Assuming of course, that the hotel hasn’t ignored my mail about how we’ll be checking in late and given our room to someone who needs it far less than the girls who have been up 21 hours. Fingers crossed.