GRAZ
8/22/2025 - 9/03/2025
We flew from Warsaw to Vienna, then took a bus about 2.5 hours south to the town of Graz (pronounced Gratz). It was a fairly easy/uneventful travel day – just the way we like it!
It was late afternoon by the time we arrived in Graz. We got settled in and wandered around a bit. We did dinner in a cool little market area, hit a wine bar (of course), and picked up some groceries. Our apartment in Graz is our favorite of the trip thus far. It is super modern and beautifully decorated and has a huge covered deck.
Our first full day in Graz started (and basically ended) with a wine tasting! Yes… my darling husband booked a 3 hour wine tasting from 11:00-2:00. And lordy lordy, what a wine tasting it was!! It was an event that was part of a huge food festival going on in Graz. This was the final day of the festival so most events were already sold out, but this one was still available, so Grady booked it. The tasting room was in town. The couple ran a winery about an hour outside of town. The wife was pouring and describing the wines, and the husband (who is also the wine maker) was in the kitchen creating extraordinary little appetizers!
We arrived at about 10:50am. We were the first guests, and she immediately poured us some wine while we waited for the others (14 people total). And she literally never stopped pouring!! Officially, she presented and we tasted 9 wines, but with every taste, there was lag time until she was ready to present the next wine, so she would just keep refilling our glasses with whatever wines we liked the best that had already been opened. And there were A LOT of open bottles of wine.
It did not end at 2:00pm as scheduled, she kept pouring and everyone kept eating and drinking until 3:30pm. It was pretty amazing! We did a good job of not getting falling down drunk by drinking a lot of water and eating all the food served, plus a lot of bread that was in baskets on the table. After the “tasting”, we went and got a real meal (yes, with a glass of wine!) then went home and napped!
Our second full day we did a walking tour and saw a little more of the town. Graz was designated the “Cultural Capital of Europe” in 2003 and became a City of “Culinary Delights” in 2008. In addition, the city is recognized as a "Design City" by UNESCO's Creative Cities Network. The old town was largely spared during WWII, but much of the city’s outskirts were destroyed and rebuilt.
We visited the Mausoleum of Emperor Ferdinand II in Graz, which was built in 1614. Ferdinand II was the archduke of Austria and king of Bohemia from 1617 – 1627, and also king of Hungary 1618 – 1625. On top of all that, he was Holy Roman emperor from 1619 – 1637. So a crap ton of titles!
In the middle of Graz is a huge hill … the "Schlossberg", which means "Castle Mountain". The word is a compound of the German words "Schloss" (castle) and "Berg" (mountain or hill). A fortress once stood up there, but it was destroyed after the Napoleonic war in 1809.
To get up there, you can take an elevator, a funicular, 260 stair steps from the town square, or a round about hike that is a pretty long uphill paved terrain combined with stairs here and there. We hiked up. To get down, you can do any of the three options above or take a slide! Yes, a spiral slide inside the center of the mountain! It is the largest underground slide in the world with 175 meters of track that is steep enough to get you up to speeds of 15.5 mph! We took the stairs down 😊
The views from the top are fabulous!
The Schlossberg is pretty extensive with a lot of pretty gardens, a museum, several monuments, a couple nice restaurants, an amphitheater, some tunnels/casemates, and the bell tower. There is a metal festival scheduled at the amphitheater on August 30. We thought about going just for Devin, but since that punk isn’t even following the blog and would miss out on the photos, we decided to skip it! 😊
But the crowning glory of the Schlossberg is the clock tower. It is the main symbol of Graz and a source of much pride! The clock tower is over 700 years old, with its core structure dating back to the around 1265. It has been modified over the centuries, its current form is still pretty stinking old - 16th century. The hands on the clock are backwards. The big hand tracks the hours and the little hand tracks the minutes. When it was originally built, they only had the hand to track the hours, so they made it large so it was more visible to the town below. Over time, they decided they should add a minute hand. Rather than replacing the long hour hand, they just made the minute hand short. The first photo below was taken at 12:50pm.
Following the Napoleonic war when everything on the Schlossberg was to be destroyed, the occupants of the city raised funds (bribes?) to convince the military to preserve the clocktower and the bell tower.
On the outskirts of Graz we visited the Eggenberg Palace. The Eggenbergs were a prominent family in Graz for about 5 generations before they died out when the last heir died at the age of 13. The first Eggenberg was Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. It sounded to me like he was more of a con (or a good salesman) than anything! The family were bankers and merchants (see… sales man!). Hans was raised protestant, but decided that being Catholic suited him just fine! So he converted and sucked up to Emperor Ferdinand II big time and became his most trusted and loyal statesman and diplomat. And with that he became super wealthy. Little by little each generation pissed the money away and eventually they all died out penniless. But the palace still remains and it is absolutely beautiful!
Within the palace there was also a medieval art museum. We blasted through it rather quickly. It was mostly depictions of pain and suffering in the name of religion (of course!)
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