Austria · Styria
Graz
Austria's second city: a UNESCO old town under a clock-tower hill, the world's largest historic armoury, and Styria's wine road an hour south.
Graz is Austria's second city and feels nothing like the first: a red-tiled old town of arcaded courtyards wrapped around a wooded rock with a clock tower on top, four universities filling it with students, and a Styrian kitchen built on pumpkin seed oil, pork and wine from the hills to the south. The strangest and best thing in it is the Landeszeughaus, the province's arsenal, still holding some thirty thousand suits of armour and weapons racked exactly as they were left when the Ottoman threat receded.
Suggested stay
2–3 days
Language
German
Currency
EUR
Timezone
UTC+2
Why you'll love Graz
The armoury thirty thousand pieces of seventeenth-century weaponry still on their racks, floor after floor of it, with no equivalent anywhere
The Schlossberg a wooded rock in the middle of town topped by a clock tower, reached by funicular, by a lift bored up through the rock, or by a zigzag of steps
Styrian food dark green pumpkin seed oil poured over everything including ice cream, fried chicken done properly, and a wine road half an hour south
A student city four universities keep the markets, bars and rents sane for a place carrying this much baroque
Best time to visit
Apr-May, Sep-Oct
15-21° days
47.071° N, 15.438° E
UTC+2 · Europe/Vienna
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Weather & when to go to Graz
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Apr-May, Sep-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Graz
December, January and February grade avoid: cold, grey, and prone to fog and still, hazy air sitting in the basin for days at a time, which is a long-standing local complaint as much as a weather one. The Christmas markets fill the squares and the old town takes lights well, but that is the reason to come, not the conditions. June to August grade only ok - Graz sits in a warm southern pocket and midsummer runs humid and thundery. April, May, September and October grade great, and September and October are also when the wine villages south of the city are pressing and pouring their cloudy young Sturm, which is the best single reason to be here.
Top things to do in Graz
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The Landeszeughaus - the provincial armoury
history ⭐ Highly recommendedFour floors of a seventeenth-century arsenal left as an arsenal: about thirty thousand helmets, breastplates, muskets, halberds and swords on wooden racks, enough to equip an army of sixteen thousand men. Styria armed its own militia against Ottoman raids from here and simply never emptied the building. It is the largest historic armoury in the world and nothing else in Austria is like it.
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Schlossberg and the clock tower
scenic 👍 PopularThe wooded rock in the middle of the city, once a fortress the French blew up in 1809 - except the clock tower and the bell tower, which the townspeople paid to save. A funicular climbs the face, a glass lift runs up inside the rock from the square below, and the steps are free. The tower's hands are reversed: the long one tells the hour.
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Kunsthaus Graz
culture arts 👍 PopularA bulbous blue biomorphic blob of a building dropped among the baroque roofs on the west bank, nicknamed the friendly alien, with nozzles on the roof and a skin that can display low-resolution light animations at night. It shows contemporary exhibitions and works precisely because it does not fit.
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Murinsel
culture artsAn artificial island of steel and glass moored mid-river and reached by footbridges from both banks, half shell-shaped amphitheatre, half cafe, with a children's slide twisting between them. Built for a culture-capital year and kept because people use it.
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Eggenberg Palace
history ⭐ Highly recommendedA palace built as a calendar: 365 windows, 31 rooms on the main floor, 24 state rooms with 52 doors between them, and a painted hall of the planets at the centre. Peacocks wander the grounds, and it is on the UNESCO listing along with the old town. A tram from the centre reaches it in about twenty minutes.
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The Landhaus courtyard and the Renaissance arcades
historyThe Styrian parliament building, put up by a Lombard architect in the 1560s, with three storeys of arcaded loggias around a courtyard and a bronze well head in the middle. Half the old town is built on the same idea, so wandering into courtyards off the street is the way to see it.
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The double spiral staircase at the Burg
historyA late-Gothic stone staircase in the corner of the old imperial castle where two flights wind around each other, separating and rejoining at every floor. It is small, free, easy to miss, and a genuinely clever piece of stonecutting.
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Graz Cathedral and the Mausoleum
historyA Gothic cathedral with a faded fifteenth-century fresco on its outside wall showing the three plagues of locusts, Turks and pestilence, and beside it the domed mannerist tomb built for Ferdinand II, worked on by a young Fischer von Erlach before he went on to define Austrian baroque.
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Kaiser-Josef-Platz and Lendplatz markets
food 👍 PopularTwo working produce markets on either side of the river, running most mornings: Styrian apples, horseradish, pumpkin seed oil in dark bottles, cured pork, and stalls where the growers pour a glass of their own wine to whoever is standing there. The one on the west bank is the rougher and better of the two.
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Styrian cooking
foodPumpkin seed oil, thick and almost black, over salad, soup and vanilla ice cream. Fried chicken jointed and crumbed properly. Dry-cured ham from the volcanic hills east of the city. Sturm in autumn, and pale peppery Schilcher rose from the western slopes the rest of the year.
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Lend and the west bank
nightlife musicAcross the river from the old town, the district around the market square has become where the city's design shops, bars and small galleries sit, mixed in with long-standing Turkish and Balkan grocers and cheap eating. It is where students actually go at night.
Best areas to stay in Graz
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Innere Stadt
First-time visitors $$Red roofs, arcaded courtyards, all walkable
Explore hotels in Innere Stadt →
Lend
Best value & nightlife $Creative west bank around the market square
Explore hotels in Lend →
Geidorf
Quiet & studenty $$Leafy university streets north of the centre
Explore hotels in Geidorf →
St Leonhard
Green & residential $$Villas, gardens and the botanic garden
Explore hotels in St Leonhard →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Graz
Getting to & around Graz
Getting there
Fly into Graz airport nine km south, or take the train from Vienna over the Semmering
Flight
Graz Thalerhof (GRZ)
Nine km south of the centre at Feldkirchen. A local train reaches the main station in about twelve minutes, a bus does the same trip a little slower, and a taxi takes around twenty minutes. It is a small airport with limited routes, so plenty of visitors fly into Vienna and continue by train instead.
Train
Graz Hauptbahnhof
Trains from Vienna take around two and a half hours over the Semmering pass, with services on to Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Switzerland; the station is a short tram ride west of the old town
Coach
Graz Hauptbahnhof
Regional buses reach the wine road, the eastern castles and the thermal spa villages from the bays beside the station, and international coaches call here on the way south
Drive
Graz
About two hours from Vienna and two from Ljubljana. The old town is largely pedestrianised with underground garages beneath it, and a low-emission and short-stay regime applies in the centre
Getting around
Walking
The old town is flat, compact and pedestrianised, and the hill sits right in the middle of it
Free
Tram
A dense network fanning out from the main square, reaching the station, the universities and the palace at Eggenberg
TBC
Bus
Fills in the hills, the outer districts and the airport, and runs the night services at weekends
TBC
Funicular & rock lift
A funicular climbs the Schlossberg's face and a glass lift runs up inside the rock from the square at its foot; the steps beside it cost nothing but effort
TBC
Bike
Flat, compact and well provided with paths along the Mur, plus a bike-share system used heavily by students
TBC
Taxi
Easy to find at the station and the main square, though almost nothing in the centre is far enough to need one
TBC
Day trips from Graz
South Styrian wine road
Full dayVineyard ridges
Steep vineyard ridges running along the Slovenian border, with wooden klapotetz windmills clattering to scare the birds, taverns pouring Sauvignon blanc and Welschriesling from the slope behind them, and a road that switchbacks along the crest. A driver has to nominate itself.
Getting there
car | bus | tour
50 min by car or bus south
Riegersburg
Full dayCliff-top castle
A fortress on a volcanic plug, approached through a series of gates up the rock or by a lift bored through it, never taken by the Ottomans, with a birds-of-prey display and a museum of the witch trials held in this part of Styria.
Getting there
car | bus | tour
1 hr by car east
Austrian Open-Air Museum, Stubing
Half dayFarmhouse museum
About a hundred historic farm buildings dismantled and moved here from every Austrian province, set along a wooded valley in rough geographical order, so a walk up it is a walk across the country's vernacular architecture.
Getting there
car | bus | train
25 min by car or bus north
Piber Lipizzaner stud
Half dayHorse stud
Where the white stallions of the Vienna riding school are bred and raised. The foals are born dark and lighten over years, and mares and young horses are out on the pastures around the estate.
Getting there
car | bus
50 min by car west
Admont Abbey
Full dayMonastic library
The largest monastic library in the world: a white and gold baroque hall of frescoed cupolas and carved wooden figures of death and judgement, at the mouth of the Gesause gorges where the Enns cuts through limestone walls.
Getting there
car | train
2 hr by car or train northwest
A little history of Graz
The name comes from a Slavic word for a small castle, and the rock in the middle of town is why the place exists. From the late fourteenth century Graz was the seat of the Inner Austrian Habsburg line, a branch capital running Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and the lands facing the Ottoman advance. That frontier role explains the arsenal: the province armed its own militia here and kept the equipment racked and ready rather than distributing it, which is the only reason a complete seventeenth-century armoury still exists anywhere.
Ferdinand II, raised in Graz, became emperor and moved the court to Vienna in 1619, after which the city settled into being a wealthy provincial capital and a place people retired to - it was nicknamed the pensioners' city for centuries. The university made it a scientific town instead: Kepler taught mathematics here in the 1590s, Boltzmann held the physics chair, and Tesla studied at the polytechnic. The old town came through the twentieth century largely intact and was listed by UNESCO in 1999, with the Eggenberg palace added to the listing later.
The settlement below the castle rock is first recorded
Graz becomes the seat of the Inner Austrian Habsburg line
The provincial arsenal is built to arm Styria against Ottoman raids
Ferdinand II moves the court to Vienna on becoming emperor
French troops demolish the hilltop fortress; the clock and bell towers are bought back by the townspeople
The old town is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site
Know before you go
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / F
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+43
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
FAQs about Graz
▸ Why go to Graz rather than Vienna?
It is a different case, not a lesser one: smaller, cheaper, far more student than imperial, and positioned for the wine hills and Slovenia rather than for palaces. The armoury alone has no equivalent anywhere, and you will queue for nothing.
▸ How many days do you need in Graz?
Two covers the old town, the hill, the armoury and Eggenberg comfortably. A third is what you want for the wine road south or a castle to the east, both of which really need a car or a tour.
▸ What should you eat and drink here?
Pumpkin seed oil on everything, including over vanilla ice cream, which sounds wrong and is not. Fried chicken, dry-cured ham from the eastern hills, and Styrian white wine; in autumn the cloudy, barely fermented Sturm turns up everywhere for a few weeks.
▸ Is Graz walkable?
Very. The old town is flat and pedestrianised, the hill in the middle has a funicular and a lift through the rock if you would rather not climb, and the trams cover anything further out.
▸ Is it worth coming in winter?
The record grades December through February avoid, and the basin holds fog and still air for days in the coldest weeks. The Christmas markets and the lit old town are a genuine draw and the museums are all indoors, but the wine villages largely shut down, so a winter trip is a city trip only.
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