Here’s an assortment of general photos from around Graz. Whether Graz or Linz is the second city of Austria is a topic of fierce debate. Graz is a lot prettier than Linz for sure. Although it’s a large city, Graz is quite a sleepy place in many ways. It gets very frustrating sometimes when even city centre shops close on Saturday afternoons. Which is why it was extra shocking that there was Austria’s first school shooting there a couple of weeks ago.
The most famous son of Graz is Arnold Schwarzenegger. There’s an urban myth that he’s not allowed to do his own dubbing in German because he sounds too rural, and it’s entirely true. Arnie has a typical Styrian accent and wasn’t allowed to do the voiceover for the Terminator films in his native language because it would just sound silly to have a remorseless killer robot sound like a farmer. Stuntman David Prowse who played Darth Vader in Star Wars was dubbed with the voice of James Earl Jones for exactly the same reason. It’s even funnier when you meet children from the area who speak with exactly the same intonation as him.
I’ve always quite fancied staying at this Wes Anderson hotel near the station, but never have.
Jufa Hotels are an Austrian chain for sporty people where there’s always some kind of climbing wall and hearty people walking around in cycling shorts. They have pretty decent rooms though and are always extremely clean.
The main high street in Graz
Really, I should get a discount here.
There’s a branch of Hotel Sacher in Graz too. I would say don’t bother to spend the extra money for the “authentic” original Sacher Torte. You’ll get something just as nice at any decent cafe in Austria.
Probably the worst hotel in Austria (Ibis Budget Graz Central), booked by my work. Thankfully I was only there three nights. When I was leaving I found a huge patch of black mould behind the door.
Has strong vibes that it used to be a youth offenders institute circa 1992, and they didn’t change or renovate a thing before turning it into a hotel.
I cannot tell you how relived I was to move to this room at my regular hotel.
River Mur- the same one as in Murau. It’s not any friendlier downstream. I wouldn’t like to fall into it. Aside from the Danube, most Austrian rivers are pretty scary.
The woman who does the English voiceovers on the trams is absolutely sick of your shit.
Infoshop that’s rarely open.
They love vending machines in Austria, whether for CBD or sausages, I guess because the shops are open so little.
This guy hangs out at the Tourist Information, in all senses of the world
“Not enough space?”
I was in a Spar supermarket in Graz, browsing the snacks, when the theme tune unexpectedly came on the in-store radio. Here is the proof- a video of me standing laughing like an idiot in front of a a shelf of Haribo with the Last Unicorn theme tune playing over the tannoy just because I couldn’t quite believe it was happening. Wikipedia tells me the theme song charted as a separate single in German-speaking markets, but it was still surreal. It was one of my favourite films as a child.
When I left the supermarket and walked back to the hotel, along the way there was a new bookshop on the square, which hadn’t been there on my previous visits to Graz. In the window was a handsome German hardback edition of the Last Unicorn book. Fate was telling me to buy it. I told the owner of the shop that I was just in Spar, and they were playing the theme tune, but she had no idea it was a film. She had just ordered it for the shop because it looked like a cool book. I ended up with a matching volume of the sequel in German as well.
My purchases that day: The Last Unicorn and a knockoff Freitag bag made by a local charity that trains young people in sewing and fashion skills. (I got the green one)
Finding a laundrette on the road is the Holy Grail, and the one in central Graz has this calming mural.
This fountain in the centre always has weirdly gelatinous water.
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