Linz spends heavily on culture, which means much of it is free: terraced hill parks with no gate, a riverside field of steel sculptures, and Austria's oldest church. Add market börek, a €4 Leberkäse roll and a €2 ferry, and three days cost less than one in Vienna.
Austria's largest church by capacity at 20,000 people, though its 134.8m spire was deliberately built 2m shorter than Vienna's Stephansdom. Entry is free, doors open daily from 07:30 to 19:00, and the Linz-motif stained glass survived 1945.
The oldest church in Austria still standing in its original form, documented in 799 and built partly from Roman stones taken from the Lentia fort. Exterior, Roman wall fragments and churchyard are open all day at no charge.
A terraced hillside park laid out in 1873 above the old town, with a rose garden, a small artificial waterfall and benches facing straight down onto the Danube bend. Never gated, never staffed, open around the clock in every season.
The riverside strip stretching east from the Nibelungen bridge holds around 40 open-air steel sculptures left behind by the 1977 Forum Metall symposium. You can walk among them 24 hours a day, and locals swim off the grass banks in summer.
Linz's biggest market, roughly 100 stalls on Wiener Straße trading Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from about 07:00 to 14:00. Turkish and Balkan grocers sell börek, olives and produce well below supermarket prices.
A 24-hour Leberkäse counter on Rathausgasse in the old town, slicing hot meatloaf into rolls since 1990. The plain semmel with mustard runs about €4.20; cheese, pizza-spiced and curry versions cost barely more. Standing room only.
The bakery that has claimed the definitive Linzer Torte since 1929, on Herrenstraße beside the New Cathedral. A slice with coffee stays under €8 and a small whole torte to carry home costs around €14. Open Monday to Saturday.
The long-table canteen inside the Moviemento cinema at the OÖ Kulturquartier, where the weekday lunch and evening menus hover around €10 and the bar stays cheap late. Students, filmgoers and gallery staff make up most of the room.
The Danube Cycle Path leaves the Linz north bank flat, paved and free of traffic, running about 12km west to Ottensheim past meadows and gravel beaches. Nextbike docks across the city make the ride cheap without any booking.
A cable-guided ferry that crosses the Danube using nothing but the river current, in service since 1871. Foot passengers pay around €1.50 and bikes about €2.20, with crossings roughly every 15 minutes in daylight from March to October.
A stone lookout tower of 1888 on the wooded Freinberg ridge west of the centre, free to climb whenever the gate stands open, with the Alpine foothills visible to the south on clear days and the whole Danube valley below.
More than 300 legal murals cover the silos and warehouses of the working harbour, one of Europe's largest collections of commissioned street art. Boat and jeep tours are paid, but the public quay path along Hafenstraße shows dozens for nothing.