Austria Travel - Graz
A fresh and casual approach to history and culture
Though arguably one of the loveliest centers in all of Europe, Graz is the forgotten city of Austria. Just 120 kilometers south of Vienna, its citizens have always collectively lived in the shadow of its more famous and glamorous cousin to the north.
Much like the sister of a beautiful film star, her virtues are usually overlooked, her physical assets are skipped over, and while her charm is acknowledged it is seldom scrutinized.
Yet here is one of the crown jewels of Europe - fresh and casual in the way it approaches its history and culture, proudly embracing both its arts and its farming traditions. It’s a center of art and intellect with historical sites dating from the Gothic, Renaissance, baroque and classical periods.
The second largest city in Austria (250,000 pop.), it has one of the great opera houses of Europe - 1200 seats with a rococo interior in red, white and gold. In Graz you won’t find great names whose ghosts haunt the living at every creative turn. Rather it merges its past with the present without mortgaging today to yesterday.
Its most famous alumni are conductor Nicholas Harnoncourt and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger - not as glorious, perhaps, as having Mozart as your cultural core, but locals don’t particularly care.
The city is 866 years old and while age is nothing new in Europe, the character of Graz’s old town is special. A great part of it is preserved in its original state - narrow streets, no auto traffic - and it’s the largest, still lived in “old town” in Central Europe.
Resting along the River Mur, what’s left of its walls may today be a tourist attraction, but they were responsible at one time for keeping advancing Turks at bay in the late 17th Century. It was once an important crossroads between east and west. Driving south for 33 miles, you reach Slovenia, in what used to be Yugoslavia, while 70 miles southeast from the old town will take you to the Hungarian border.
If you’re a fitness buff you can walk up the 400 switchbacked steps rising from the base at the Schlossbergplatz, not far from the main plaza, where several good restaurants can be found at the foot of these steps. Here also there is a funicular handy, to take you to the top. Nearby, at No12 Sackstrasse, is the Krebenskeller (crayfish cellar). On warm, summer evenings, it’s THE place to eat and drink. Locals leave the impression many were at the original restaurant’s 1538 opening
As European castles go, there’s not much to see atop the Schlossberg. You go there for views of the surrounding countryside and the city itself. Its Clock Tower is the symbol of Graz and helps define its unusual character. The townspeople paid 3,000 guilders to the French not to destroy it and it remains the largest bell tower in Styria, pealing musical tones since 1588. A word of caution: on this clock face, the little hand is what defines the minutes. It’s the large hand that shows the hour - an endless seed of bewilderment for unsuspecting visitors, but a symbol of distinction for Grazians.
The Styriarte music festival is held in the 17th Century Eggenberg Palace on the outskirts of town late June through late July. Named after the region Styria, the festival is a combination of Beethoven, rich food, and brass bands. This is the essence of Graz. While Vienna is always “correct” and Salzburg is a shrine to Mozart, Graz’s musical festivals are almost blue collar.
Inside the palace, built in 1625, the Hall of the Planets is likened to a huge baroque wedding cake of a room covered with 600 gilt-edged frescoes and elaborate stucco decorations. In town, the original armory (Landeszeughaus) is connected to the Landeshaus, headquarters of the regional government and one of the finest examples in Austria of Renaissance architecture. The armory hosts one of the richest collections or arms in the world, with 29,000 pieces of armory, (a small portion of the 185,700 pieces that were stored there in 1699 its maximum capacity).
And one of the first places to explore is the Church of the Franciscans (Franziskanerkirche), completed in 1277, with its bulb-shaped bell town cupola finished in 1643. Go behind the church to the cloisters, with its tombs dating to the 15th Century, and a 14th Century chapel where the now 10 resident monks pray.
There’s a public flower garden across the street from the church (formerly No.10 Neutorgasse). Here was the house of Maria Anna Schicklgruber who worked as a maid and cook in the home of the Jewish butcher and soap maker, Leopold Frankenreiter.
In one of history’s great ironies, Maria Anna was the grandmother of Adolph Hitler. Her illegitimate son - Hitler’s father - is said to have been sired by Frankenreiter’s son who paid alimony for 20 years. In the rich traditions of Graz, that information is merely an aside and is not conceded by any marker.
The star attraction of the outlying region is in Piber near Koflach, where you find the Federal stud farm of the Lipizzaner horses of the Vienna Riding School and where you can leisurely walk the grounds of the Piber Castle rounds. The small, white horses trace their heritage to 1580 when the Archduke Karl of Styria built a stud farm in the once-Styrian town of Lippiza, near Triste. After the First World War, Austria lost Lippiza and the farm was transferred to Piber. Born black, the horses gradually turn white between the ages of two and seven.
The combination of city sophistication and country style openness makes Graz and its region a remarkable place, fresh and unpretentious, yet every bit as culturally urbane as either Vienna or Salzburg.
Author: Ray and Toshi Chatelin
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