Graz is the second-largest city in Austria, and is located a few hours to the south of Vienna. Just like Vienna (and seemingly every city in Europe), Graz has a long history and a few major sights to see. The city has some beautiful architecture, including a few old churches and the ubiquitous Hapsburg castle. Inside the castle is this bizarre staircase from the 15th century. A little was lost in translation, but for some reason there is a place on the staircase where you can place your camera, take a picture, and then get this gun barrel-esque picture:
In addition to the classic architecture, Graz has a mixture of modern buildings and structures in the city as well. Here is the city's famous bridge that leads to an island cafe (the bridge apparently lights up blue at night, but I didn't have a chance to take a picture at night):
I then toured the Armory, which is a museum of weapons from Austria. The museum included swords, suits of armor, guns, helmets and other pieces of warfare from the middle ages. The entire collection was massive--thousands of weapons spread over four different floors.
Next I toured the Kunsthaus, which is the city's museum for modern art. When I heard that it was a modern art museum, I figured there would be artists like Picasso, Matisse, or Pollock in there (like the modern museum in New York). No such luck. There was one exhibit with different flashing neon lights and one exhibit that looked like a house of mirrors. One final "exhibit" was simply three rotating displays of post cards. When I looked at the postcards, a security guard came up and told me to "make a wish and pick two cards" in broken English. Needless to say, I didn't spend a lot of time in here. The museum itself is probably the better attraction. I'm not sure what the design in based on, but I decided that it looked like a stomach. At any rate, here is Graz's Kunsthaus:
After the museum, I went up to visit the Clock Tower at the top of the city. The clock dates back to 1712, while the tower was built in 1561. This is the place that most people associate with the city of Graz. There was also a great garden right underneath the tower where you can view the entire city. Here are some images from the long path to get up to the tower, and then the tower at the top:
After a visit to the park in Graz, it was time to leave for the Zotter chocolate factory. Zotter is a relatively new chocolate manufacturer located in Bergl. (At least I think it's in Bergl. It was at least an hour away from Graz in a very rural part of Austria.) The manufacturing process was exactly like one that I read about for my supply chain class last semester. We could watch through windows, but couldn't actually go down to see how the chocolate was made though. However, we did get to taste chocolate at each stage of the process, beginning with the imported beans:
We went through a long assembly line to taste the different types of chocolate that the company makes. Of course, I tried every single one--I didn't keep track of the number, but there were about 75 different kinds. It was a bit exotic for my taste, plus the tastes start to run together once you've tried that many flavors.
The final part of the tour was Zotter's hot chocolate cafe (Zotter also makes a wide range of hot chocolate products). We were served a glass of hot milk as soon as we entered the room, and then bars of chocolate came in on a wire that circled around the room. The whole process was similar to a ski lift. We picked the flavor that we wanted off of the "ski lift" and then mashed it into the milk to make hot chocolate. I have to admit I thought the hot chocolate was much better than the traditional chocolate bars.
So after a long day of travel, we left Zotter and returned back to Vienna. (More pics from both places in the gallery.) I'll get caught up with the rest of orientation and Oktoberfest/Munich in the next couple days...
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