Graz and Bratislava - June 11th and 12th

I was originally planning to travel to Croatia in June to round out my travels in Europe, but that eventually fell through. Instead I took two day trips, one to the Austrian city Graz and the other to Bratislava, the capital of neighboring Slovakia.

Graz, Austria

Graz is the second largest city in Austria, with a population of about 300,000. In 1999 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization added Graz to its list of World Cultural Heritage Sites, and in 2003 the city was made the Cultural Capital of Europe (for this year the position is shared between the Austrian city Linz and Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania). Graz is in the Austrian state (Bundesland) Styria, which is in the south-east corner of the nation, boarding Slovenia, and the city is crossed by the Mur river. It is also nearby the village where America's most famous Austrian immigrant, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was born.

I traveled with Tony and Christine, two fellow UIUC students, and Gert-Jan, a Dutch exchange student also studying in Vienna. We began our trip in Graz by heading towards its historic Old Town. Like everywhere else I've been in Europe, I passed many churches and restaurants along the way. Some points of interest included the bizarre-looking Kunsthaus, the blue building you can see in my photos, which was built as an art museum as part of the European Capital of Culture celebrations in 2003; the Cathedral of Graz and the nearby Mausoleum of Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria; and city hall, or Rathaus.

After arriving in the Old Town we visited the Burg, the residence of the Habsburg emperors built in 1438. Among other things, it contains a famous double staircase (Doppelwendeltreppe) dating back to the Gothic period. Today the Burg serves as the seat of the provincial governor of Styria. Afterwards we checked out the Schloss Eggenberg, a Baroque palace on the western edge of Graz. We didn't have time to take a tour of its interior, which is unfortunate since, as I found out later, the palace contains 365 windows, 31 rooms on each floor, 24 state rooms that contain 52 doors and 60 windows, and 4 corner towers; meant to symbolize time (the seasons, weeks, days, hours, minutes, etc).

By that point hunger was catching up with us, so we headed downtown in search of food. Along the way we stopped by Glockenspiel square, which contains a giant clock. I read online that the clock “comes to life with song and rotating dance figures every day.” My thoughts? It was much lamer than that sounds: during their performance, if you can call it that, the dolls didn't even leave the doors on the clock, and instead just spun around a little. At least I didn't have to pay for that... At any rate it began raining so we headed inside a nearby restaurant. If I remember correctly I had the goulash which was quite good.

After eating we headed off to the Schloßberg, an icon of the city. The name literally translates as “castle mountain”, which is quite fitting, as the Schloßberg is a castle on top of a hill in the middle of the city. Towards the peak of the Schloßberg there is a clock tour, or Uhrturm, and from the mountain I was able to see an amazing view of the city. After refreshments at a nearby cafe we were running low on time, and thus had to head back to the train station.

Bratislava, Slovakia

As I mentioned before, Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia. Yet while the city is technically outside of Austria, it is so close to the boarder that my train ride from Vienna was about 40 minutes or so (as opposed to over 2 hours to get to Graz). Bratislava has a population of about 428,000, and in the past served as the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary under the Habsburg Monarchy. To students from my Illinois group, Bratislava was probably best known for cheap SkyEurope and RyanAir flights out of its airport, but luckily there's much more to the city than that. Gert-Jan happened to know a girl from Slovakia studying in Vienna, Mirka, who had time to join us, so I was very fortunate to get a tour from a native.

Our first stop was the iconic Bratislava Castle (which is on the back of several of Slovakia's euro coins), passing the Slovakian Parliament building along the way. Unfortunately it began raining soon after we climbed up to the castle, but luckily I still had a spectacular view of the city across the Danube River. The castle itself is being renovated at the moment, but it should be quite the sight in a couple years (not that that does me much good now). Climbing down from the castle we took a stroll through the town center, which was quite nice and, as always, chock full of restaurants, cafes, and stores. Mirka then brought us to one of her favorite diners. I don't remember exactly but I had some sort of traditional Slovakian dish, which was very good.

We later stumbled onto a traditional dance and then a concert by the popular Slovakian rock band Desmod to help raise awareness for Down Syndrome. After that we saw the Grassalkovich Palace (Grasalkovičov palác), also known as the Presidential Palace. It is currently used as the residence of the President of Slovakia (who, unlike American presidents, is only head of state rather than also being head of government. Thus the position is largely ceremonial, kind of like the British Monarchy only with elections). After that we headed across the Danube river, passing under the UFO – a famous restaurant in a tower above Nový Most (New Bridge), a symbol evidently of modern Bratislava. I imagine it would have been amazing to eat there with the overhead view of the city, but that probably costs a lot too.

Reaching the other side of the Danube we walked to Sad Janka Kráľa. That is a large park surrounded by the city, sort of like Central Park in New York City. On the other side of the park we saw Aupark, a major and very new-looking shopping mall. We had drinks and a quick dinner there, then had to head back to the train station.


Additional photos from Graz here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/32227991@N02/sets/72157619579953825/

And more from Bratislava here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/32227991@N02/sets/72157619665439462/