Stadtplatz
Stand anywhere on the Stadtplatz and look along its length: the square swells in the middle and narrows at both ends, a lens shape that probably follows an old road and the lie of the land. To the north it closes at the Enge, to the south at Pfarrgasse and the Grünmarkt. It counts among the best-preserved old town ensembles in the German-speaking world, and it is free and open at any hour, so give it time.
The square goes back to the middle of the 13th century, when two older settlements, one around the castle then called Stirapurc and one around the parish church, grew into a single town. The plots are still medieval, and many houses have Gothic cores behind later baroque fronts. The Sternhaus at No. 12 shows the trick: a rococo facade with the five senses, but Gothic corbels and a Gothic portal give away its age. Its left half was destroyed in the Second World War and rebuilt faithfully; the late Gothic neighbour at No. 14, Café Stark, was lost in a bombing raid on 24 February 1944.
Keep looking around. The Meditzhaus at No. 9 wears a baroque face but hides a Renaissance arcaded courtyard. The rococo town hall was designed by Johann Gotthard Hayberger, begun in 1765 and completed in 1778. The youngest building is the neo-Gothic Sparkasse at No. 20/22 from 1900, for which two older houses, the Reichlhaus among them, were pulled down. The Leopoldibrunnen fountain has stood here since 1683, and at the southern end the Marienkirche shows a baroque Counter-Reformation front, with the late Gothic vault of its congregation chapel kept from an earlier building.
Music lovers should find No. 16, the Schuberthaus. Franz Schubert came to Steyr in 1819, 1823 and 1825; the first two times he lodged in the Stalzerhaus at No. 34, the last time here, and a plaque from 1890 remembers him. The oldest house on the square gets its own moment later. For now, walk 260 m, about 4 minutes, to the parish church.
