Steyr is a small industrial city at the confluence of the Steyr and Enns rivers in Upper Austria, about 30 km south of Linz. It has one of the best-preserved old town centres in Austria — a compact, photogenic cluster of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo buildings gathered around the Stadtplatz, which is regularly cited as one of the most beautiful town squares in central Europe. The Bummerlhaus, a 15th-century Gothic burgher house on the square, has survived six hundred years largely unchanged, and Schloss Lamberg rises above the town on the hill where the original Styrian fortress stood — the castle from which the neighbouring province of Styria takes its name.
Steyr's prosperity came from iron. The Erzberg iron mountain, 60 km south, has been mined since the Middle Ages, and the forges and weapon-makers of Steyr turned that iron into blades, firearms, and eventually the trucks and all-terrain vehicles of Steyr-Daimler-Puch. The Innerberger Stadel, now the city museum, and the restored craft canal of the Wehrgraben connect the old town's wealth to the surrounding iron landscape — part of what makes a visit here more interesting than the postcard views alone.
Walk the old town, see the baroque Christkindl Church (2 km outside the city, famous for its Christmas post office which franks letters with a special "Christkindl" stamp), and combine a visit with the Nationalpark Kalkalpen to the south — one of the largest protected forest areas in the Alps. Steyr is an easy day trip from Linz or a stop on the way to the Salzkammergut lakes.