Wels is famous in Austria for being boring. It’s much more attractive than nearby Traun, with a pretty riverside and historical high street, but nothing ever seems to happen there. There’s apparently a university, but the students don’t seem to exist outside classes. There’s also an anarchist Infoshop, but it’s only sporadically open, and I’ve never actually managed to be there when it is. Again, it’s probably a nice place to live, with good transport links and a nice bookshop and record shop, but going there for work when you don’t know any locals can be dull.
This is a great brand name for skips.
The best thing in Wels is this haberdashery shop that sells all kinds of weird deadstock stuff at very low prices. I got some Smurf ribbon. I haven’t figured out what to do with it yet.
These weird cat Pierrot dolls (or Plüsch Tiger as they had it) were €1.50 each. I got one for me, and several as unwelcome gifts for people. Mine now sits on the shelf above the record player.
Here’s the university. I didn’t see anyone there.
The Platonic Ideal of Austria. The national schnitzel.
There’s also a good second hand bookshop in Wels. I liked the typography on this book, and looked it up. Egon Fleischel and Co was the original publisher for Stefan Zweig. I looked up Hans von Hoffensthal, and he turned out to be from Bolzano, born in 1877 the days when it was still in Austria. Lori Graff is about a woman who catches gonorrhoea from her husband, which was a pretty daring subject matter for 1909. It was later banned by the Nazis. Von Hoffensthal was already long dead by then, dying young of tuberculosis.
“Austria as it is”
If you don’t want an antique book, maybe you can get a pet.
Keeping the dimensions lined up with the one in Kremsmünster.
The river Traun looking very nice, although not as nice as it looks at the Hallstätter See.
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