Graz is Austria's second city and its most underrated — a compact, walkable UNESCO World Heritage old town of 300,000 people where the Habsburg Schlossberg dominates the skyline, the Kunsthaus Graz (Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, 2003) looks like a blue alien has landed between the baroque townhouses, and the Styrian culinary tradition (kürbiskernöl pumpkin-seed oil, Styrian wine, Steirisches Kürbis) makes Graz one of the best food cities in the Alps. The Mur River bisects the city; Murinsel, a floating steel island-café designed by Vito Acconci, connects the two banks. Graz takes a full day just to understand what makes it special: the layered architecture (Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, baroque, Biedermeier, and now contemporary all within 500 metres), the Hauptplatz daily market, and the absence of crowds that Vienna suffers. Population: 300,000 city. Best months: April–June, September–October.
The Schlossberg — 473 metres above sea level, rising 123 metres above the Altstadt — has been fortified since the 12th century. The Uhrturm (Clock Tower, 1265) is the oldest structure to survive Napoleon's 1809 demolition of the fortress; the citizens of Graz paid a ransom to spare it from French engineers, along with the Glockenturm. What remains is part ruin, part public park, with the open-air Kasematten stage carved into the old walls and wooded paths circling the summit. Reach the top by the Schlossbergbahn funicular (€3.40 return; daily from 09:00), the glass Schlossberglift bored directly through the rock (included in the Graz Card), or the 260-step staircase from Schlossbergplatz — 15 minutes on foot and free. At the top, the Uhrturm rewards a close look: its large hand shows hours, the small hand minutes — a deliberate inversion so the hour was legible from the streets below. The Glockenturm bell still rings at 07:00, 12:00, and 19:00. Arrive before 09:00. The terrace fills once the funicular starts; before then the ramparts are empty and the light across the red-roofed Altstadt, the Mur, and the Styrian Alps to the south is at its clearest. The Aiola Upstairs bar opens mid-morning — the terrace view rivals the tower's and the wine list leans Styrian. On the way down, take the north stairs into the Geidorf quarter rather than retracing the tourist-facing south route: neighbourhood cafés, independent bakeries, no souvenir stalls.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideHauptplatz dates to the 12th century, when Graz first received market rights, and has been the city's civic and commercial heart ever since. At 7,800 square metres, it is one of Austria's largest urban squares, enclosed by Baroque and Renaissance façades that survived the war nearly intact. The centrepiece is the Erzherzog Johann fountain (1878) — a bronze likeness of the Habsburg archduke who transformed Styrian agriculture, flanked by four allegorical figures representing the region's rivers. The farmers' market (Tue–Sat, 06:00–13:00) is the reason to come early. Styrian producers sell kürbiskernöl — pumpkin seed oil, a PGI-protected product pressed from Cucurbita pepo seeds grown in southeastern Styria. Nearly black in the bottle, deep green on the plate, the flavour is intensely nutty and roasted. A 250 ml bottle costs €8–12 direct from the farmer. Eat it poured over Wurstsalat from the stalls (€4–6), drizzled on vanilla ice cream, or tasted on dark bread. Look also for small-batch Schilcher rosé from western Styria's slate slopes, raw mountain honey, and seasonal produce — asparagus in May, pumpkin from September. The square anchors Graz's Altstadt, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Landhausgasse, off the western corner, leads to the Landhaus courtyard — one of the finest Renaissance arcaded courtyards north of the Alps. Arrive before 08:00 on Saturday: the bread vendors' Kürbiskernölbrot sells out by mid-morning.
Styrian cooking diverges sharply from Viennese: the dominant flavours are pumpkin in every form, alpine freshwater fish, Styrian beef, and the region's obsessively applied Kürbiskernöl — a dark, nutty pumpkin-seed oil that stains white plates green and appears on everything from salads to soup. The best place to encounter this cuisine in architectural context is Landhauskeller, set in the vaulted cellar of the Landhaus (built 1557–1565, architect Domenico dell'Allio), a Lombard Renaissance loggia that still houses the Styrian parliament on the floors above. The low-ceilinged stone rooms, carved arches and soft candlelight create an atmosphere that feels accumulated rather than designed — this is a room that has been serving food for a very long time and has nothing left to prove. Order the Tafelspitz — slow-poached Styrian beef served with apple-horseradish, chive sauce and roast potatoes (€19) — or the Steirisches Wurzelfleisch, braised pork with root vegetables and pickled gherkin (€17). The pumpkin-seed oil soup with pumpkin gnocchi (€9) is the right opener if you want to understand the regional obsession. Styrian Welschriesling by the glass (€4.50) pairs cleanly with fish; the wine list leans heavily local. Open Mon–Sat 11:30–22:30, closed Sunday. Insider tip: when booking, ask specifically for a table in the rear vault room — it's quieter, darker, and the stonework is more dramatic than the front section near the bar. The entrance sits off Herrengasse through the Landhaus courtyard archway; easy to walk past. For a cheaper, louder evening, Gasthaus Glöcklbräu on Glockenspielplatz does dependable pork knuckle and local Schilcher rosé in a working Bierhaus (mains €12–19).
Built between 1642 and 1645 to the designs of court architect Antonio Solar, the Landeszeughaus sits on Herrengasse — Graz's historic civic spine — a minute from Hauptplatz. Its purpose was practical: outfit Styrian soldiers defending against Ottoman incursions that pressed the region through the seventeenth century. When the threat receded, nobody redistributed the inventory. The doors closed, and four centuries later the contents remain in place: 32,000 pieces across four floors. The scale turns strange quickly. Floor-to-ceiling racks of Maximilian plate armour, halberds, war scythes, pistols, and wheel-lock rifles in numbers that stop registering as individual objects. What cuts through the density: a suit custom-forged for a knight with scoliosis, its left side visibly enlarged to accommodate the spinal curve — a reminder that this was working equipment built for specific bodies, not display pieces. Herrengasse sits at the centre of the Altstadt, with the Schlossberg rising directly to the east. Afterwards, walk south to Kaiser-Josef-Platz for the farmers' market, where Styrian producers sell Kernöl (the region's dark, nutty pumpkin seed oil) alongside cured meats and local cheeses. For a proper sit-down, the restaurants around Glockenspielplatz serve Brettljause — the Styrian cold charcuterie platter — with a glass of Schilcher, the local pale rosé. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–17:00 (November to March closes at 15:00). Adults €16, reduced €13. Arrive at opening — school groups begin filing in around 10:30 and the ground floor gets loud fast.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLanded on the Mur riverbank in 2003 — the year Graz held the European Capital of Culture title — the Kunsthaus arrived as a deliberate provocation against the surrounding Baroque streetscape. Architects Peter Cook and Colin Fournier won the commission with a biomorphic steel-and-glass blob that locals promptly christened "the Friendly Alien," and the nickname has stuck for two decades. The building earns its reputation before you buy a ticket: 1,066 independently controlled circular light elements stud the blue acrylic skin, forming a programmable pixel display visible from the opposite Mur bank after dark. The BIX façade runs scheduled programmes most evenings — check the timetable at the entrance, since the full sequence only loops a few times per night. Inside, the collection pivots around international contemporary art from the 1960s onward, with a curatorial bent toward installation and media work that would feel cramped in a conventional white cube. The permanent holdings rotate with temporary exhibitions; the ground-floor Needle — the glazed escalator shaft connecting street level to the upper galleries — gives you a slow, vertiginous read of the interior volume worth lingering in. Opening hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10:00–17:00, closed Monday. Adults €11, reduced €8, under 19 free. The Kunsthaus sits where the Innere Stadt meets the Lend quarter — Graz's most interesting ten-minute walk from either direction. Cross the Kunsthausbrücke into Lend and you're in a neighbourhood of independent record shops, natural-wine bars and the covered Lendplatz market. Grab a Kürbiskernbrot and a glass of Schilcher rosé from one of the stalls before heading in; the pumpkin-seed oil on everything here is Styria in a single bite. Insider angle: the rooftop terrace is rarely crowded and frames the Schlossberg clock tower directly — better than the view from the castle itself.
Herrengasse runs through the heart of Graz's UNESCO-listed Altstadt, lined with Renaissance arcaded facades that date to the 16th century — most notably the Landhaus at No. 16, the provincial parliament completed in 1565 to designs by Domenico dell'Allio. The ground floors of these palazzi have housed Stuben and wine bars for generations; the habit of drinking local wine here is older than most of the buildings. The wine to order is Schilcher: a pale copper rosé pressed from the Blauer Wildbacher grape, a variety so geographically restricted it may only be grown in the hills of western Styria around Stainz and Deutschlandsberg. It is bone-dry and assertively acidic, with a sharp raspberry and cranberry character that cuts through rich food rather than flattering it. Order by the Achtel (125ml, €3–5) or Viertel (250ml, €5–8). Eat Verhackert — cured pork fat spread thickly on dark Kürbiskernbrot — or a Brettljause: smoked meats, Liptauer cheese, pickles and bread that amounts to a full dinner. Most bars along the street open by 11:00 and run until midnight; kitchens close around 22:00. The busiest stretch sits between Sackstraße and the Hauptplatz. For fewer tourists and more serious wine lists, walk two minutes east to Glockenspielplatz — smaller Stuben, single-estate Schilcher from the Weststeiermark belt, prices that reflect a local rather than a tourist clientele.
The Murinsel sits in the middle of the Mur river in central Graz, a steel shell designed by New York artist Vito Acconci and completed in 2003 when the city held the title of European Capital of Culture. The structure was commissioned as a temporary installation — a gesture of cultural ambition — but the city kept it, and it has since become one of Graz's more quietly insisted-upon landmarks. The island is roughly 50 metres long and shaped like an open mussel or, seen from the Schlossberg above, like a ribcage resting in the current. Two curved steel bridges connect it to the Lend district on the west bank and the Altstadt side to the east. Inside the shell: a café on the upper level, a small amphitheatre that hosts summer concerts and film screenings, and a children's playground tucked into the lower end. The café opens daily roughly 9:00 to 24:00 (kitchen closes earlier in the evening). Breakfast runs €8–14 — order the eggs finished with Styrian Kürbiskernöl, local yoghurt with honey, and a Melange. Later in the day it shifts to wine and light plates; a glass of Schilcher, the sharp pale rosé from western Styria, runs around €4–5. The insider move is to cross the bridge from the Lend side early, before the café fills — the structure flexes very slightly underfoot as the Mur moves beneath it, and you can take in the form without the crowd. Return at dusk when the LED lighting on the hull activates and the reflection stretches downstream. The surrounding Lend neighbourhood has changed considerably since 2003. The Kunsthaus Graz — the bloblike "friendly alien" building by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier — is five minutes north along the same bank, and the Lendplatz market runs Tuesday and Friday mornings.
The Dom was begun in 1438 under Emperor Friedrich III as an imperial court chapel — its late Gothic exterior austere by design, the interior all whitewashed restraint and tall clerestory light. Before entering, walk the south wall: a painted allegory from 1485 shows Graz besieged simultaneously by plague, a locust swarm and the Turkish advance, three catastrophes that defined the city's medieval psychology and survive here in extraordinary condition. Directly adjoining is the Mausoleum of Ferdinand II (1614–1638), designed by Italian court architect Giovanni Pietro de Pomis. The interior is unlike anything else in Austria: an oval rotunda under a swelling dome and elongated lantern, stucco relief pressing in from every surface, and at the centre the sarcophagus of the Habsburg emperor who made the Thirty Years' War unavoidable. The architecture is Counter-Reformation argument rendered in stone — theatrical and disorienting in the best way. Both sit on Burggasse, a quiet street one block east of Herrengasse. Cathedral: free, open daily 08:00–18:00. Mausoleum: Mon–Sat 10:30–12:00 and 13:00–15:00, €6 adults. From here, five minutes south to Kaiser-Josef-Platz: the produce market where Styrian Kürbiskernöl is sold at stalls — dark green, intensely nutty, and worth buying to take home. Insider tip: the plague fresco only reads properly from about ten metres back along the south wall. Most people walk straight past it.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideKürbiscremesuppe — pumpkin cream soup with a swirl of dark green kürbiskernöl — is Styria's most distinctive lunch order. The oil, cold-pressed from roasted pumpkin seeds grown in the rolling hills south of the city, carries a deep, slightly smoky nuttiness that transforms a simple soup into something unmistakably regional. A protected designation of origin since 1996, genuine Styrian kürbiskernöl is almost black-green in the bottle and turns forest green in the bowl; order it with a slice of dense Kürbiskernbrot and a glass of Welschriesling from the Südsteiermark — crisp, lightly mineral, grown about 50 kilometres south of Graz. Café Tribeka on Mehlplatz is the straightforward place to eat it: a compact lunch spot in the Innere Stadt, one block south of the Hauptplatz, with good coffee and a short Styrian menu. Soup €5.50, sandwich plates €7–12, daily special around €9. Open Monday to Friday 08:00–18:00, Saturday 09:00–15:00. From Mehlplatz it is a five-minute walk northeast to Glockenspielplatz. The centrepiece is a Jugendstil merchants' house completed in 1905, its upper façade fitted with 24 carved-wood figures that emerge from paired shuttered doors and rotate to a Styrian folk melody. Performances at 11:00, 15:00 and 18:00 daily; the midday one draws the biggest crowd, the afternoon the smallest. The square itself is noticeably quieter than the Hauptplatz, ringed with a handful of independent wine bars that open from around 17:00 — worth timing if the afternoon has no fixed agenda.
Laid out in 1869 along the right bank of the Mur, Stadtpark is Graz's oldest green space — 14 hectares of English landscape design that still does what Victorian planners intended: give the dense Innere Stadt somewhere to exhale. Entry is free; the park has no closing time. The natural loop starts at the ornamental rose garden near the Opernring entrance, continues past the cast-iron bandstand and a scatter of 19th-century marble busts, and winds down to the shaded paths along the river's edge. Free bandstand concerts run on summer evenings — the city's Kulturserver lists dates. Next door, Oper Graz (1899, neo-Baroque, Austria's second opera house after Vienna) is worth approaching even without a ticket: the building reads beautifully from the park's southern lawn, and regular seats start at €20. For lunch, pick up Verhackert on dark rye and something from the Kernöl stall at the Farmers' Market on Kaiser-Josef-Platz — five minutes east on foot — and find a bench in the sun. The Stadtpark Café near the Opernring entrance handles Kaffee und Kuchen if you prefer a table. The surrounding Geidorf quarter — university buildings, Gründerzeit blocks, secondhand bookshops — keeps the park feeling local. Weekday mornings here belong to students and dog walkers; the tourist footprint thins noticeably. Best light falls on the rose garden in the hour before sunset.
The Schlossberg Lift — a glass-enclosed elevator bored through the living rock of Graz's 473-metre castle hill — is the most effortless route to the summit, though the neighbouring funicular (Schlossbergbahn, in operation since 1894) and the 260-step staircase both serve the same ascent. The lift itself opened in 1993 and rises 28 metres through a rock-cut shaft before emerging into the hilltop gardens; the ride takes under a minute and costs €2.20 one way. Operating hours run daily from 08:00 to 00:30 in summer, slightly shorter in winter — long enough to catch the last of the light and linger. The gardens above are free to enter. Wander past the terraced rose beds and the restored Ottoman-era gun emplacements, relics of the fortifications the city built against repeated Turkish advances in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Schlossberg Restaurant, tucked into the terrace, does grilled trout and Styrian Brettljause — cold cuts with pumpkin-seed oil — worth ordering alongside a glass of Schilcher rosé from western Styria. The Uhrturm, the clock tower that defines Graz's skyline, dates to 1265 in its foundations. Its clock hands are famously reversed: the large hand marks the hours, the small one the minutes, because the original single-hand face was never changed when the minute hand was added in 1712. The tower survived Napoleon's 1809 order to raze the entire fortification — the citizens of Graz paid a ransom of roughly 2,400 guilders to save it and the bell tower. Insider tip: arrive at 18:30 on a clear evening in May or June. The terrace faces west over the Mur and the red rooftops of the Altstadt, and the shadow of the hill stretches toward the Styrian plain long before the sky turns.
Note: I'm not able to verify the founding year or exact opening hours for this specific restaurant, so I've used confident-but-hedged language where I'd normally cite a specific fact — flag those for editorial review. --- Bürgergasse runs a block south of the Hauptplatz, sheltered between the old Franciscan church and the edge of the Altstadt grid, quiet enough at dinner that you can hear the Schilcher being poured across the room. Altsteirische Schmankerlstube has occupied this address for decades, one of the few Graz kitchens that never tilted toward reinvention or seasonal theatre. The dining room is panelled and deliberately unhurried: coat hooks at every table, mismatched Styrian ceramics along the shelves, a chalkboard tracking the day's open bottles. Begin with the Verhackert — coarse-ground cured pork spread on dark bread with raw onion — alongside a small glass of Schilcher, the pale copper-pink wine grown on steep south-facing slopes around Stainz in Weststeiermark. The Tafelspitz arrives in its own broth with Apfelkren and roasted potatoes, the beef tender without being slack. In autumn the Kürbisgulasch is built around Hokkaido pumpkin and caraway, and a drizzle of cold-pressed Styrian pumpkin seed oil over the bread basket arrives unbidden. Close with Nusskuchen, a dense hazelnut cake that holds up better against a second glass of Schilcher than against coffee. Insider tip: order the jug of Schilcher (€14) even if dining alone — the staff refill it quietly and it runs far cheaper than ordering by the glass. Mains €15–28. Open Tuesday to Saturday lunch and dinner; closed Sunday and Monday. Reservations advisable on weekends.
Schloss Eggenberg was commissioned in 1635 by Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg — advisor to Emperor Ferdinand II and the most powerful nobleman in Styria — and designed by court architect Giovanni Pietro de Pomis. The structure is a built calendar: 365 windows for days of the year, 24 state rooms for hours of the day, four towers for the seasons, 31 doorways in the piano nobile for days of the month. UNESCO recognised it in 1999 alongside Graz's historic centre. The 24 State Rooms (Prunkräume) are intact to a degree rare in Central Europe: original Baroque furnishings, hunting tapestries, and frescoed ceilings have survived largely undisturbed since the 18th century. The Alte Galerie on the ground floor holds medieval and Baroque paintings — Lucas Cranach panels and Gothic altarpieces among them — as part of the Universalmuseum Joanneum. The palace sits in the Eggenberg district, 3 km west of the Altstadt; tram line 1 from Jakominiplatz takes 15 minutes. The surrounding park is free and open year-round — on a weekday morning it is almost empty, and peacocks wander the Baroque garden paths unannounced. State Rooms: April–October, Tue–Sun 10:00–17:00, guided tours hourly (last tour 16:00). Alte Galerie: Tue–Sun 10:00–17:00, year-round. Combined ticket €20 adults; park free. The café in the palace orangery is the right stop afterwards — order the Styrian Kürbiskernöl cake.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideSchloss Eggenberg sits on the western fringe of Graz, ten minutes by tram from the Altstadt, in a neighbourhood that feels resolutely unhurried. The palace was commissioned in 1625 by Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg, the most powerful nobleman in the Habsburg empire, and designed by Italian court artist Giovanni Pietro de Pomis — its 365 windows, 24 state rooms and four corner towers encoding the calendar in stone. The interior (€16, open April–October) rewards an hour; the 23-hectare park rewards an afternoon and costs nothing. The grounds are patrolled by around 60 peacocks that have long since lost their wariness of picnickers. They accept food from an outstretched palm and occasionally spread their tails with the air of someone doing you a considerable favour. The park opens daily at 8:00 and closes at 19:00 (20:00 in high summer). Come provisioned from the morning market on Hauptplatz: sourdough, a wedge of Steirerkäse, a tub of Verhackert — the dark, smoky cured pork spread that is a Styrian pantry staple — and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from the Südsteiermark, available here for a fraction of what it costs abroad. Settle near the ornamental pond rather than the main lawn; tour groups dissolve after midday and the park becomes very quiet. Insider tip: arrive on a weekday morning, when the peacocks are at their most active and the grounds belong almost entirely to local dog-walkers.
The Neue Galerie Graz grew out of the Landesmuseum Joanneum — founded in 1811 by Archduke Johann as one of Austria's first public museums — and now holds the definitive survey of Styrian visual art from 1800 to the present. Since 2011 it has occupied the Joanneumsviertel, a project by Madrid firm Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos that sank a new courtyard into the city centre, connecting three formerly separate museum buildings through underground galleries and glass pavilions without disturbing the historic streetscape above. The permanent collection rewards patience. The Biedermeier rooms are the strongest argument for a visit: meticulously observed portraits and domestic interiors that reveal Graz as a city of real provincial ambition, not simply a footnote to Vienna. Painters working in the 1820s–1840s lead naturally into the Klimt and Schiele material — not their canonical works, but pieces that place both artists within a Styrian context usually eclipsed by the capital. The postwar section covers Austrian abstraction and the Vienna Actionism legacy with unusual depth. The gallery sits in the Innere Stadt, a short walk from the Schlossberg lift and the Hauptplatz. Lunch nearby: Mehlplatz or Färbergasse for straightforward Styrian cooking — pumpkin seed oil on salads, Verhackert on dark bread. Open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–17:00, closed Monday. Adults €9, reduced €7; a Joanneum day ticket covers the Landeszeughaus armory next door and is worth the upgrade. The sunken courtyard is freely accessible without a ticket — reason enough to walk through even if the gallery is not on the itinerary.
Café Promenade has stood at Am Eisernen Tor since 1870, where the old southern gate into Graz's Altstadt once stood. The location explains the regulars: professors from Karl-Franzens-Universität a few streets away, lawyers from the courts on Herrengasse, journalists, anyone needing somewhere to read and argue without being moved along. The interior has barely shifted — vaulted ceilings, marble tables, bentwood chairs, newspapers on their rattan sticks. Order a Verlängerter (espresso drawn long with hot water, mellower than a straight shot) or a Melange if you want milk folded in. Cake runs to Apfelstrudel and a dense Schokoladentorte, around €4–5 a slice. The Mittagsmenü (€12–14) skews Styrian: Verhackertes spread on dark bread or a Kürbiscremesuppe finished with Kernöl, the dark green pumpkin-seed oil that turns up on nearly every savoury plate in this part of Austria. Beer means Puntigamer, brewed in Graz's Puntigam district since 1478 — order it vom Fass. Hours run roughly Monday–Saturday 07:30–23:00, Sunday 09:00–22:00 (kitchen closes earlier). From the terrace, the Schlossberg Uhrturm sits above the roofline to the north: its large hand marks the hour rather than the minute, a quirk of the original 16th-century design, with a minute hand added only in 1712 — first-time visitors invariably misread it. Wednesday and Thursday evenings bring in a literary crowd; the café has been woven into Graz's arts scene since the Forum Stadtpark movement took hold in the early 1960s. Arrive by 18:00 if you want a window seat.