Graz, Austria



After a few hours on a train ride, we made it to Graz...the city where my parents are serving. This picture is us walking from the train station, next to their church on to their apartment.

Graz is the second-largest city in Austria after Vienna and the capital of the federal state of Styria (Steiermark). On January 1, 2013, it had a population of 300,002 (as indicated on Wipkepidia...I like to think the "2", of the 300,000 are my parents). Graz has a long tradition as a student city. It has six universities have more than 44,000 students. Its "Old Town" is one of the best-preserved city centres in Central Europe.

In most of the open areas of the city, there were vendors, fresh fruit stands and other markets

Flower Market Stand

We went up 5 flights of stairs to see this view. The building we were on was a department store that had a restaurant on the roof top. The famous Clock Tower is shown behind us. What an amazing view!

Graz is known as the city of "red roofs". It was beautiful and it made magnificent views.



The 16th century clock tower is 28m high and is the emblem of the city of Graz. Originally, it only had the hour hand, but later the minute hand was added, which is smaller than the hour hand. It is only one of two features which still exist from the destruction of the city’s defences following the Treaty of Vienna. Napoleon’s armies were paid 2,987 florins and 11 farthings to prevent the tower from being destroyed during the 1809 French invasion.

This man was at the top of the Clock Tower playing his accordion and singing an Austria song. Quaint!

 

On the hike down the clock tower mountain, Mike found this stone chair.

This is part of a wall on the top of the mountain. It is about 400 years old. I love all the little ferns growing out of the rocks!

 Cobble stone walkways and roads...beautiful patterns!

Fun fountain in the city street

A delicious lunch in downtown Graz, a Doner Kebab. Yummy!



Ruins from the castle that was on top of the mountain next to the clock tower

At the top of the clock tower, we bumped into this cute couple from my parents ward. This man was the bishop of the ward for several years. They were there celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary! It was here at the clock tower that many years ago, he proposed to her. So cute!

 

Lion statue at the top of the mountain

The buildings were amazing, ornate and beautiful!

Being only 2 hours from the border of Italy, the gelato was fresh, delicious and Italian! It was very hot while we were there and the only refreshment was the EIC!

The streets were full of cute little shops. This one was all of purses! Even after closing, they lined the purses up all over...on the floor, on chairs and shelves.

Window shopping was so fun! These were my favorite...Durndles. This is the authentic dress of the German culture. They were beautiful dresses. This one in the window can be bought for about $400.00 and it doesn't include the umbrella :)



Last Day in Vienna



Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria

Schönbrunn Palace is a former imperial 1,441-room summer residence for the Royal Austrian Empire since 1529. The name Schönbrunn (meaning "beautiful spring"), has beautiful fountains, ponds and natural springs on the land. It is magnificent on the inside and outside.

One of the many rooms in the palace



One of the beautiful fountains on the palace grounds



There were many "street" actors dressed up as Mozart and other famous Vienesse people, hoping for a tourist to drop a euro or two in the can for a picture with or to shake thier hand. This golden Mozart man kept asking Mike about "Salt Lake City" and the Olympics from 2002. So funny!

This was too cute! It was so fun to see how my parents took care of each other. We walked pretty much everywhere and it was so adorable to see them hold hands.

This is the famous "Opera Toilet" located under the Vienna Opera House. It usually costs about 50 cents to use a public restroom, but even under construction it costs 1 Euro (about $1.40) to use this toilet. Yikes!

Another street actor, trying to get us to buy tickets to the Vienna Opera that night. Too bad tickets started at 100 Euros. 

One more stop at a bakery for lunch and then we headed on a train for their hometown of Graz, Austria

More of Vienna

Construction work on the U-Bahn (subway/underground) in 1972 led to the discovery of the foundation walls of the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, which was demolished in 1781, and the Chapel of St. Vergilius that lay beneath it. As you come out of the subway, there is a window overlooking a section of this buried church. It was beautiful! Arches and pillars all made out of stone with relics and mural paintings that were from 1240!

Above ground, this is the outline of the buried church and what it's position used to be 

More of the rubble they have saved from the buried church.

Hofburg Palace...this has housed some of the most powerful people in European and Austrian history, including the Habsburg dynasty, rulers of the Austria-Hungary empire.

One of the many amazing statues outside the Palace

Looking up in the dome

The Royal Arms of Austria

I took pictures of the street signs...I know I'm silly, but even they were unique and beautiful.

Rose Garden in the Volksgarten Vienna

This is the back side of the Heldenplatz and the Hofburg buildings. We were there the height of rose season...mid-June. The Rose gardens were beautiful and the aroma in the air was so strong and wonderful!

This is the Heldenplatz (literally "Heroes Square") in front of the Hofburg Palace. The President of Austria now resides in the  adjoining wing, while the Federal buildings is on the other side. The feeling of politics and power reminded me of the White House. :)



Mike standing next to the gate entrance to the gardens



Another wonderful day in Vienna

Beautiful flower shops were everywhere and we saw a lot of "locals" carrying wrapped fresh flowers to take home.

 

A view of Stephan's Platz in Vienna

After touring the city, I felt that Vienna is unique in that it is the city of old, mixed with new. With the old style, there were buildings that the Turks created and a few with Gothic and Baroque influence, but mostly my favorites had the traditional Roman and Greek architecture. Because of WWII, some of the old buildings were destroyed and new or modern buildings were built in their spot to replace those that had to be demolished.

To commemorate the city's deliverance from the Great Plague and waves of the disease, the Viennese erected this monument. Like many other countries, Austria lost over 76,000 residents in Vienna alone from the Black Plague in 1679. 

Another stop for gellato

We saw a few of these around this city..it's called a "FAXI", like a taxi, but built more like a bike and the driver pedals you around town.

One of the most famous sites in Vienna, St. Stephan's Cathedral.

A statue outside the front of St. Stephan's

One of the many pulpits in St. Stephan's Church

Side view of the top half of St. Stephan's Church. One of the few Gothic architecture buildings here

Artwork engraved in stone depicting Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane in St. Stephan's.

This is kind-of erie, but on our tour of the cathedral...they took us downstairs into the catacombs. We weren't allowed to take pictures of this, but I found this on-line and copied on to my blog. We saw tombs and caskets of Bishops and other important church leaders from 1300's to present. But, as this picture shows... we saw several "windows" of these. This is where they buried the dead of those who were "worthy to be buried on church grounds" in the community grave for those that died from the Black Plague in the 1600's. At first, it was hard to believe they were real skeletons...it almost looked fake, like something you would see at Disneyland on the Pirates of Caribbean ride. Only there were bones as far as I could see with and several massive graves. We were told on our tour, that they stopped counting how many and after a few years stopped burying them under the cold church because people stopped coming to church because of the smell. Yikes!

After the tour...we captured a picture together