The best things to do in Graz are the Schlossberg and its clock tower, the Landeszeughaus with its 32,000 racked weapons, the Kunsthaus, Schloss Eggenberg and the Murinsel. The old town is small and flat, so almost all of it is walkable, and the funicular, the lift and the trams all run on the same zone 101 ticket. Give the city two days, and keep a third if you want the South Styrian wine road, which is about 45 minutes south by car.
Graz sits on the Mur where the eastern Alps flatten into the Styrian basin, close enough to Slovenia and Hungary that its food and its architecture both borrow from the south. It is Austria's second city, 306,068 residents at the start of 2025, and roughly 61,000 of them are students, which is why a UNESCO old town this intact never feels like a museum piece. Two of those UNESCO listings are here: the historic centre, inscribed in 1999, and Schloss Eggenberg, added as an extension in 2010. Graz was European Capital of Culture in 2003 and a UNESCO City of Design from 2011, and the two dates explain the skyline, because the blue blob on the river and the steel island in it both arrived with the first of them. The ten entries below start on the hill in the middle of the city and work outward to the palace on the western edge.
The hill is why the city is here, and the clock tower is why the hill is empty. Napoleon's terms in 1809 required the fortress on top to be pulled down, and the citizens paid a ransom to keep two pieces of it: the Uhrturm and the bell tower. What is left is a wooded park about 123 metres above the Hauptplatz with the widest view in Styria and three ways up. The Schlossbergbahn funicular climbs from Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Kai in about 90 seconds and runs every quarter hour, the lift shoots up inside the rock from Schlossbergplatz, and the Schlossbergstiege does it in stone steps for anyone who would rather earn the view.
Time2 hr
CostFunicular and lift on a Graz Linien zone 101 ticket
Best atThe hour before sunset
TipThe clock's long hand marks the hours and the short one the minutes, a hangover from when it had only one hand.
Around 32,000 weapons, suits of armour and pieces of equipment stand across four floors of the Styrian provincial arsenal, which makes it the largest historic armoury left anywhere. The point is the quantity rather than the highlights: Styria was the frontier province facing Ottoman raids, so it stocked enough to arm a militia at short notice, and the stock was never broken up. Racks of pikes run the length of the building, helmets sit in rows by size, and nothing is behind glass in the way a national museum would put it. It reads less like a collection than like a warehouse that stopped issuing.
Time1 hr
CostTicketed
Best atMorning
TipThe armoury is one of the Universalmuseum Joanneum houses, so a group ticket pays off if you plan to see more than one of them.
Peter Cook and Colin Fournier built this for the 2003 Capital of Culture year and named it the Friendly Alien themselves, which is the only reason the nickname stuck instead of something ruder. The blue acrylic skin bulges over a 19th-century iron house on the Lend bank, and the nozzles on the roof are north-facing skylights rather than decoration. After dark the east face becomes BIX, a media façade of 930 fluorescent rings that can run low-resolution animation across the whole wall. There is no permanent collection, so what is on depends entirely on the current exhibition.
Time1.5 hr
CostTicketed
Best atAfter dark for the façade
TipThe Needle, the glazed arm sticking out of the top floor, looks straight down the Mur and costs nothing extra once you are inside.
Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg had the palace built as a model of time and the heavens, and the arithmetic is exact: 365 windows for the days of the year, 31 rooms on each floor for the longest month, 24 state rooms for the hours. The state rooms lead to the Planetary Room, and more than 500 ceiling paintings run through them. It was added to the Graz World Heritage listing as an extension in 2010, and the park around it is a working garden with peacocks in it rather than a formal parterre. Tram 1 stops at the gate, about 20 minutes from the centre.
Time2.5 hr
CostTicketed, guided tour included in the entrance fee
Best atMidday
TipThe state rooms can only be seen on a guided tour, and English tours run to a fixed timetable, so check it before you ride out.
Pair the cathedral with the Mausoleum of Ferdinand II
Church· Burggasse 3, 8010 Graz
The Dom St. Ägidius went up between 1438 and 1462 in Gothic and was reworked in Baroque over the next three centuries, which is the short history of most churches here. What is not ordinary is the fresco on the outer south wall: the Landplagenbild of 1485 records the three plagues that hit the city that year, locusts, pestilence and the Ottomans, in that order. Next door, the Mausoleum of Emperor Ferdinand II was begun in 1614 to a design by the court artist Giovanni Pietro de Pomis and is among the earliest centrally planned Baroque buildings outside Italy. The interior was finished decades later by a young Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach.
Time45 min
CostCathedral free, mausoleum ticketed
Best atMorning
TipFind the Landplagenbild on the outside wall before you go in. Most visitors walk straight past it to the door.
The New York artist Vito Acconci moored a steel shell in the middle of the Mur for the 2003 Capital of Culture year: about 50 metres long, 20 wide, and open at the top like a half-twisted net. Two footbridges connect it to each bank, so it works as a crossing as well as a sculpture. Inside there is a café, an amphitheatre at one end and a blue slide for children in the middle. It was designed as a temporary installation and never left, which says something about how quickly the city took to it.
Time30 min
CostFree to walk through
Best atEvening
TipEnter from one bank and leave by the other. Doubling back wastes the only building in Graz that is also a bridge.
Emperor Frederick III had the Burg built as his residence, and in 1499 a mason cut this staircase into a corner tower of it. Two flights wind in opposite directions, separate at every half turn and touch again at each floor, which earned it the local name of the staircase of reconciliation. The stonework is late Gothic showing off, and it is still the most technically impressive thing in the old town. The Burg now houses the Styrian provincial government, so the courtyard is a working office block, but the staircase stands open and free.
Time20 min
CostFree
Best atWeekday mornings
TipSend one person up each flight. Meeting at every landing is the only way to see what the mason actually did.
The main square has been triangular since the 12th century and still holds the sausage stands, the tram junction and the town hall. The Luegg house on the corner carries the heaviest stucco façade in the city, and the fountain in the middle is Archduke Johann with the four rivers of Styria at his feet. Herrengasse runs south from it as the pedestrian spine, past the Gemaltes Haus with its 1742 frescoes and a run of arcaded courtyards that are open and almost never signposted. The Altstadtbim, the old town tram line, runs the length of it free of charge.
Time1 hr
CostFree
Best atSaturday morning
TipPush through the unmarked passageways off Herrengasse. Several open into Renaissance courtyards with cafés in them.
Domenico dell'Allio built the Landhaus for the Styrian estates between 1557 and 1565, and its courtyard is the most complete piece of Lombard Renaissance architecture in the country: three storeys of arcades, a bronze well canopy of 1590 in the corner, and creeper across most of it by August. The building is still the seat of the Styrian parliament, so it is in use rather than preserved. In December the courtyard fills with the ice nativity, carved fresh each Advent. The armoury shares the address, which makes the two a single stop.
Time20 min
CostFree
Best atLate afternoon
TipCome in Advent for the ice nativity, or in summer for the concerts the courtyard is used for.
Graz's largest church went up between 1881 and 1887 in brick neo-Gothic, and its tower reaches 109.6 metres, the tallest in Styria and the third tallest church tower in Austria. From most of the eastern districts it is the landmark you navigate by. The interior is high, narrow and unusually bright for the style, and it is worth ten minutes even if 19th-century Gothic revival is not your period. The square in front doubles as the city's organic farmers' market on Tuesday afternoons.
Time30 min
CostFree
Best atTuesday afternoon
TipThe organic market on Bischof-Zwerger-Platz runs Tuesdays from 14:00 to 18:00, so time the visit and eat afterwards.
Two. The first covers the old town: the Schlossberg, the armoury, the cathedral and the Burg staircase, with the Lend bank and the Kunsthaus in the afternoon. The second takes tram 1 out to Schloss Eggenberg and leaves time for a market and a museum. Add a third day only if you want the wine road or Riegersburg.
Is Graz walkable?+
Almost entirely. The UNESCO core is flat and mostly pedestrianised, and you can cross it end to end in about 20 minutes. The two exceptions are Schloss Eggenberg, which is 20 minutes out on tram 1, and the Schlossberg itself, which has a funicular and a lift inside the rock if you would rather not climb it.
What is Graz known for?+
Two UNESCO listings in one city, the historic old town from 1999 and Schloss Eggenberg from 2010, plus the largest surviving historic armoury in the world. It has also been a UNESCO City of Design since 2011, which is where the Kunsthaus and the Murinsel come from, and it markets itself as Austria's capital of culinary delights on the strength of Styrian produce.
Do you need a car for the day trips?+
Not for all of them. Trains run south to Leibnitz and Ehrenhausen for the wine road and on to Maribor in just over an hour, and buses reach Stübing and Köflach. A car helps for Riegersburg and for driving the ridge road between the cellar doors, where the point is the stopping rather than the arriving.
When is the best time to visit Graz?+
Late spring and September. May and June bring the terraces and the Styriarte concerts without the August heat, and September stacks Aufsteirern and the opening of steirischer herbst into the same few weeks while the markets are at their best. December is the other case worth making, for the Advent markets and the ice nativity.
Where to eat
Best restaurants in Graz
Styrian cooking runs from the vaulted Wirtshaus to a Michelin dining room, often on the same street.
The reliable answer to "where do I eat Styrian food" without booking weeks out. Backhendl, Käferbohnen and a wine list that stays inside the province, with a shop attached selling what you liked.
Serving in the same building for more than 450 years, in a Renaissance courtyard off Schmiedgasse. Traditional Austrian plates done properly rather than reinvented, and the courtyard is the best table in the old town in summer.
Halfway up the Schlossberg with the city laid out below and a modern Austrian kitchen that earns the view rather than trading on it. Book the terrace and go at dusk.
Alexander Posch cooks a market menu of about ten courses from what the stalls outside had that morning, which is as literal an argument for Graz as a food city as anyone makes.
An old inn on Bürgergasse behind the cathedral, with a garden courtyard and the long Styrian standards on the menu. The version of this city that existed before it had a design label.
The local specialty roaster, with branches near the university and in the centre. The place to go when what you want is the coffee itself rather than the room it is served in.
The Styrian bakery chain everyone here grew up on, with a long bread counter and one of the few places open on Sunday morning. Order a Kürbiskernweckerl and you have solved breakfast.
A pavilion on the edge of the Stadtpark dating from 1870, run now as one of the freshest rooms in the city. Breakfast under the trees on a weekday morning is the best value on this list.
A day café on the top floor of the old department store, with a terrace that looks straight across at the Schlossberg. Closes when the shop does, so it is a lunch and afternoon proposition.
A small wooden bar in the Stadtpark that opens after 22:00 from Thursday to Saturday and runs a different DJ each night. Dancing until it is properly light again.
A 1928 pavilion built against the old city wall, working as a terrace café in daylight, a bar in the evening and a club with live sets at the weekend. Three venues in one address.
The city's serious cocktail room: gin, whisky and old rum done straight, with live music on Tuesday nights. Where to go when the student bars are too loud to talk in.
The largest event space in the city, on Dreihackengasse in Gries, running club nights and live shows across two floors. Check what is on before you commit the night to it.
The province's modern and contemporary collection, reached through the sunken glass entrance in the Joanneumsviertel. Strong on Austrian painting either side of 1900 and on what came after.
The history of the province told through its own objects, with a visible-storage floor that shows the collection as it is actually kept. The most useful hour in the city for context.
Everyday Styrian life, costume and craft, housed in an old monastery below the Schlossberg. Small, quiet and the direct explanation of what you will see at Aufsteirern in September.
Botany, geology, mineralogy and zoology from the Joanneum's founding collections, redisplayed in the modern quarter. The best of the city's museums for children.
A small museum inside the surviving Schlossberg buildings, covering how the fortress worked and why almost none of it is left. Pair it with the walk up rather than making a separate trip.
The biggest and oldest of the farmers' markets, laid out along Kaiser-Josef-Platz behind the opera house. Pumpkin seed oil, Käferbohnen and apples straight from the grower, and the Michelin kitchen at the end of the square shops here.
The right-bank market and the more local of the two big ones, ringed by bars that open as the stalls come down. Come for the produce, stay for the square.
The organic market, on the square in front of the Herz-Jesu church and the only one that runs in the afternoon. Certified producers only, which makes it the shortest list of stalls and the easiest to shop.
Everything inside the old walls: Hauptplatz, Herrengasse, the cathedral, the Burg and the foot of the Schlossberg. Walkable end to end in 20 minutes and priced accordingly, which is still worth it on a two-night trip.
The left bank opposite the old town, anchored by the Kunsthaus and the Lendplatz market. Immigrant-run kitchens, second-hand shops and the densest run of bars in the city.
South of Lend on the same bank, the most international quarter in Graz and the one that has changed most in a decade. Postgarage and a run of studios and offices sit alongside the older shops.
North of the centre and largely academic: the main university campus, the botanical garden, bookshops and cafés that empty in August. Green and calm without being far out.
Where every tram line meets, at Jakominiplatz, and where the city gets on with its week. Cheaper beds than the centre, and the Kaiser-Josef market on the northern edge.
A 25 kilometre run of ridge road through Ehrenhausen, Gamlitz and Leutschach, with cellar doors and Buschenschank taverns most of the way along it. Sauvignon blanc is what the region is known for, and the wooden Klapotetz windmills clatter through the vineyards to keep the birds off.
A fortress on the plug of an extinct volcano, never taken in its history, with a witchcraft museum inside covering the trials the region ran. The Zotter chocolate factory sits at the foot of the same hill, which is how most families end up making a day of it.
Where the Lipizzaner horses of the Spanish Riding School are bred and raised before they go to Vienna. Foals are dark and turn white with age, which is the thing everyone comes to check for themselves.
Around a hundred historic farmhouses and workshops moved here from every Austrian province and rebuilt along a wooded valley. One of the ten largest open-air museums in Europe and an easy half day with children.
St. Barbara's church was rebuilt by Friedensreich Hundertwasser in 1987, so an ordinary parish church now carries gold onion domes, mosaics and no straight lines. The glass museum next door is worth the extra half hour.
The nearest foreign city, and close enough that Graz treats it as a suburb with better wine. The old vine on the Drava waterfront is documented as the oldest producing grapevine in the world.
Electronic music, art and political discourse, staged partly in the tunnels inside the Schlossberg. The 2026 edition runs from 5 to 8 March.
Mar
Diagonale
The festival of Austrian film, held in Graz cinemas across six days with the year's domestic features and shorts. The 2026 edition runs from 18 to 23 March.
Jun
Styriarte
The classical festival founded in 1985 to give Nikolaus Harnoncourt a summer home in his own province. Concerts run through late June and July in the Helmut List Halle, the Stefaniensaal and out in the Styrian abbeys.
Jul
La Strada
Street theatre, puppetry and outdoor performance across the squares and the riverbanks, most of it free. The 2026 edition runs from 31 July to 8 August.
Sep
Aufsteirern
The old town given over to Styrian folk culture for a weekend: brass, dirndl, regional food and craft on every square. The 2026 edition falls on 19 and 20 September.
Sep
steirischer herbst
Founded in 1968 and still one of Europe's oldest festivals of the avant-garde, running new work in theatre, art and music across the city. The 2026 edition runs from 24 September to 18 October.
Oct
Lange Nacht der Museen
The Austria-wide museum night, when the Joanneum houses and most of the smaller collections stay open late on a single ticket. First Saturday of October.
Dec
Grazer Advent
More than a dozen Christmas markets across the squares of the old town through Advent, plus the ice nativity carved fresh each year in the Landhaushof.
Getting around
Graz transport & airports
How to arrive and move around the city.
GRZ
Graz Airport
About 9 kilometres south of the centre at Feldkirchen. The S5 commuter train reaches it from Graz Hauptbahnhof in roughly 12 minutes, every 15 minutes, and a covered walkway of about 300 metres links the station to the terminal. Buses 630 and 631 run to Jakominiplatz instead, in 20 to 30 minutes depending on traffic. It is a regional airport, so many visitors fly to Vienna and take the train down.
Graz Hauptbahnhof sits west of the centre, three tram stops from Hauptplatz. Railjet services run hourly to Vienna in about 2 hours 36 minutes, with connections on from there to Salzburg and Linz, and southbound trains cross into Slovenia for Maribor and Ljubljana.
Holding Graz Linien runs the network inside fare zone 101, which stretches as far as the airport. One ticket covers trams, buses, the Schlossbergbahn funicular and regional services with three-digit numbers: an hourly ticket is €3.30 for adults and a 24-hour ticket €7.20. The Altstadtbim, the old town tram, is free through the centre, and every line meets at Jakominiplatz.
The old town is flat, compact and largely pedestrianised, so almost nothing inside it needs a ticket. The Mur cycle path runs the length of the city on both banks and carries on north up the valley and south towards Slovenia. Taxi ranks sit at Jakominiplatz, Hauptplatz and the Hauptbahnhof.
Chicken in fine breadcrumbs, fried and served in pieces, traditionally with a wedge of lemon and a potato or leaf salad. The Styrian version is the reference one, and a Backhendlstation is a restaurant that does little else.
Steirisches Kürbiskernöl
Dark green oil pressed from roasted pumpkin seeds, protected as a regional product and used on everything here: salad, soup, spreads and ice cream. It stains, it tastes of toasted nuts, and it is the single ingredient that identifies Styrian cooking.
Käferbohnensalat
Scarlet runner beans, grown in Styria since the 16th century, dressed with vinegar, onion and pumpkin seed oil. Speckled purple, the size of a thumbnail, and the standard side to Backhendl.
Grazer Krauthäuptel
A local butterhead lettuce with a reddish rim, grown around the city and protected under its own name. Served simply, with pumpkin seed oil and a chopped egg, and on every menu from May.
Verhackert
Smoked bacon chopped to a paste with salt and garlic, spread thick on dark bread. Farmhouse food that never left the menu, and the thing to order with a glass of Schilcher before dinner.
Brettljause
A board of cured meats, Verhackert, cheese, horseradish and bread, meant to be shared and eaten slowly. What a Buschenschank on the wine road serves instead of a menu.
Sterz
Coarse buckwheat or cornmeal cooked in a pan until it breaks into crumbs, eaten with milk, soup or crackling. Poor-farmer food with a long memory, and now on smart menus again.
Pumpkin seed oil ice cream
Vanilla ice cream with the oil poured over it, which sounds wrong and is the best argument for the oil anyone makes. Sold at market stalls and most cafés in summer.
Graz fact sheet
Graz at a glance
The essentials worth knowing before you go.
Country
Austria
Region
Styria (Steiermark), of which Graz is the capital
Population
306,068 (city, 1 January 2025)
Founded
First recorded around 1128
Nickname
GenussHauptstadt, the capital of culinary delights
Language
German, Styrian dialect
Currency
Euro (€)
Time zone
Central European Time (UTC+1), CEST in summer
Calling code
+43 316
Airports
Graz (GRZ) 9 km south, Vienna International (VIE) about 2 hr 36 min by train
Power
230V, type F
Emergency
112 Europe-wide, 133 police, 144 ambulance, 122 fire
Interesting facts
The clock tower reads backwards. The Uhrturm had only one hand for centuries, so it was made long enough to see from the Hauptplatz; when a minute hand was added it went on shorter, and Graz never swapped them round.
The city bought its own landmark back. Napoleon's terms after 1809 required the Schlossberg fortress to be demolished, and the citizens raised a ransom to spare the clock tower and the bell tower. Everything else on the hill came down.
Schloss Eggenberg is a calendar in stone: 365 windows for the days of the year, 31 rooms on each floor for the longest month, and 24 state rooms for the hours of the day.
The Landeszeughaus survived because Styria argued for it. When the armouries of the empire were centralised in the 18th century the province petitioned to keep its own stock, and roughly 32,000 pieces stayed on their racks instead of being melted down.
Arnold Schwarzenegger grew up in Thal, a village about six kilometres west of Graz, and the house he was born in is now a museum.
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