Graz, Austria

Graz , Austria - Day one

I am writing this quick blog, mostly to upload pics from our trip as we move along from day to day.  When I get home I will work on polishing the www. Slowtravelsblog.wordpress.com.  So this is "quick and dirty" and really for immediate family just to update you on our travels with very little writing (in English).

Monday:  June 16
We set out at the most civilized hour of 15:45 from Ben Gurion.  A wonderful feeling to feel awake.  Definitely recommended.  We land in Vienna, rent a car and drive two hours to Graz.  The GPS from the rental place (25 euros) is  a bust.  Twenty minutes out of Graz I sign up with orange and am back to my friendly WAZE which gets us directly to our hotel without delay.  What did people do in the days without WAZE??

That night after checking in to the hotel, we set out for a stroll at 10:30 PM and saw the city by night.  There are four universities there and 50 students so the town was still lively.  We stopped for a local beer, and welcomed with a local schnapps made from pine cones, since we told the waitress this was our first night in Austria.  We then made our way to the clock tower where the elevators work till 12:30 PM.  Of course, I didn't have my camera with me, so I will try to put my cellphone photos in here, but if not, you will have to picture it or go here.  We were quite happy by the time we returned to our hotel at 12:30 AM (no jetlag), and felt that we had seen the sites.

We stayed in a lovely art deco hotel, the Hotel Wiesler, right on the Mur river that runs through town and highly recommended if you want to come to Graz.  That is a question in and of itself.  As we began to read about Graz we learned that they were just about the most enthusiastic city in terms of getting rid of their Jews during the Nazi times.  On Nov 9, 1938 they gleefully burnt their beautiful old shul to the ground.  Today there are not too many Jews (who identify themselves) living in Gratz.  They rebuilt a shul and redidicated in on Nov 9, 2000.  We made a pilgrimage to the site to pay homage to all those that lost their lives, but of course the shul is closed. One needs to make reservations three weeks in advance!!! So her are the pics of Graz:

view from hotel room

mural in breakfast room

local cafe- where we had coffee

mur river

synagogue - graz

old burnt stones- a reminder of Kristallnacht, part of cornerstone of current shul

commemoration plaque

 And now some beautiful buildings:

And some more beautiful buildings:

So this has gotten us most of the way through Graz, which was at 12 PM on Tuesday.  I don't seem to be able to add more pics so we will move on to the second post: Maribor, Slovenia, shortly.