Lina & Sofia Graz is located about 150km south east of Vienna, Austrias capital. It is the second largest city of Austria, following the capital which is in first place. This city is definitly worth a visit and even if that is just for a day. Find out what you can fit into only one day in Graz and start planning your visit.
If you have a hotel or a camping space outside of the inner city, I recommend purchasing a 24h ticket for public transport to get around, which is only about 5,50 euros. Other than that I recommend going around the town by foot because that way you may see places you wouldn’t when using public transport and can stop whenever something catches your attention.
NOTE: We went to Graz in August and during the Corona-Pandemic, we got there by rented camper and had a camping spot outside of the inner city (next Busstop: Straßgang Bad).
If you want to see several museums, I recommend buying the 24h Joanneum Ticket which costs 15 euros (over 18) and gives you access to all of their 19 museums for this period of time. All museums mentioned in this post can be accessed with this ticket. Also note the opening hours of the museums you want to visit!
However, let’s get started of how we spent our day in Graz.
1. Eggenberg Palace
The Castle is sitting in mids of a huge garden area where peacocks are home. There are several distinct exhibitions located and presented on the grounds. We took the tour of the State Rooms, which I can only recommend because they combine styles from different eras and show how people decorated their rooms, used them and what meaning they had for presentational purposes. (We started with this place because it was the only one further away from the inner city).
On the Eggenberg estate you can also visit the Coin Cabinett, if that interests you, and pay a visit to the Archeology Museum.
2. Kunsthaus Graz
This is an art museum with changing exhibitons but when we visited it there were two different ones displaying modern art. Even though for us the exhibitons were not as interesting, don’t hestitate to pay this museum a visit and get an impression yourself.
What we did however really enjoy about the Kunsthaus was the Kunsthaus Café, where we went for lunch and its stunning and unique architecture which is best admired from across the river.
Chicken ‘n’ Waffles in the Kunsthaus Café 
The Kunsthaus building
3. Town Square and and Town Hall
If you cross the Mur coming from the Kunsthaus and follow the street leadinh straight ahead you will reach the Town Square where the Town Hall and the Erzherzog-Johann-Brunnen (-well) is located. The Town Hall was built in 1550 and is a stunning building.
4. Styrian Armoury
Not far from Town Square you can find this museum. It displays more than 30.000 objects from the 15th and 18th century and is the largest historic armoury in the world. In addition to that this armoury also contains one of only seven complete horse armaments in the world.
5. Landhaushof
The Landhaus (=country house) was the first renaissance building in Graz and was finished in 1531. The courtyard is definitly worth a look!
6. Graz Cathedral
The building may look a bit plain from the outside but we found it quite impressive on the inside. It was built in the 15th century and is of great cultural importance to the city.
7. Hofbäckerei Edegger-Tax
This bakery is famous for its detailed exterior and is Graz’ oldest still working bakery. Sadly it was closed when we visited the city but it was still worth just walking by because of the impressive facade. Let me know if you try some of their baked goods, so that I know what to take if I ever get the chance.
(Sadly there was an ugly red transport van parked in front of the entrance when we visited so I could not take nice picture).
8. Schlossberg
There are several ways to access the Schlossberg. You can either use the Lift, the castle hill railway or go by foot using the Kriegssteig.
We chose to take the railway to reach the top since the access price was already included in our Joanneum ticket.
On top of the Schlossberg are several things to look at:
- The Bell Tower: Its Bell “Lisl” tolls 101 times three times a day.
- Major-Hackher-Memorial: A bronce sculpture in form of a lion honors the major who defended the Schlossberg against 3000 French soldiers with only 17 more soldiers on his own side.
- Chinese Pavilion
- Clock Tower: The landmark of Graz!
- and many other things!: Just take an afternoon walk and get surprised from what else awaits you here.
You can also have a drink with a great view of Graz from atop. To get back down, we took the Lift which cost us extra and was not very spectacular. I believe the Slide would be a much more fun experience (although it also costs extra).
Other sights to see in Graz that I couldn’t fit in:
- Murinsel: an artificial island on the river Mur connected to both banks of the river.
- Mausoleum of emperor Ferdinand the second: building right next to the cathedral
- Opera: in front of the building, that was built in 1899, a sculpture by Hartmut Skerbisch is being displayed.
- to see a list of all Joanneum museums click here
You can of course easily switch sights for other ones but this post presents the chronological order in which we visited them. We started our sightseeing tour around 9:30 am and did not have to hurry to get everything done at all. I hope you were able to find some ideas and inspiration for your own trip to Graz and wish you lots of fun exploring this, in my opinion, beautiful city. Leave a comment with some feedback or your own experiences exploring this city and share this post with your travel buddies.
Do you want to visit more cities but only have little time? Read our other posts about daytrips to some other great cities:
