Your first look at its picturesque Altstadt, set on a peninsula formed by the confluence of the Steyr and Enns rivers, will make you wonder what took you so long to get here.

Entrance to the town is through an arched stone gate, part of the wall that protected the city in medieval times. Inside, a broad square is lined with well-preserved Gothic and Renaissance buildings. Further on, the square funnels down to become the town's alley-size main shopping street, the Eisengasse, and eventually passes through another gate and on to where the rivers join.

Town records go back to 980 when the Styraburg - now Lamberg Castle - was built. A fire destroyed Steyr in 1727, but in the middle of the 19th century a local lad named Joseph Werndl came to the rescue. He began to manufacture guns and Steyr became one of Europe's main weapons suppliers, an activity that continued through two world wars. (On a more positive note, Werndl and Steyr are given credit for erecting Europe's first electric street lights in 1884.) Werndl's company eventually became Steyr-Daimler-Puch, a World War II arms producer and the town's industrial installations were heavily bombed in 1944. Until 1955, Steyr was the border town between the occupied American and Soviet zones. These days the city still makes its living in the iron trade: the Steyr-Puch company builds motorbikes and there is also a BMW truck assembly plant.

Not to be missed in the weeks prior to Christmas is the nearby pilgrimage hamlet of Christkindl, where you'll find a pretty church and a very busy post office. This is where Austrian children send their Christmas letters and all are answered by the Christkindl post office. You may wish to mail a card from here as the stamps and postmark are somewhat prized. There is also a massive, wonderfully intricate, 'Rube Goldberg'-style, mechanical Nativity scene on display. Completed just before the war, it is the work of a single local hobbyist who took some 40 years to build it in his living room.