Christmas Trip Part IV: Graz and Bad Radkersburg, Austria, Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Trieste, Italy

On Sunday the 28th, we continued back into Austria and headed down to Graz and a small town called Bad Radkersburg. My Mom had lived with her family in both Graz and Bad Radkersburg after WWII before they came to the US. It was interesting to see many of the places that she had remembered and described to me.

This is the Rathaus, or city hall in Graz, in the Hauptplatz.

Statue in front of the Rathaus.

Street down from the Hauptplatz, decorated with upside-down Christmas trees.

buildings down the street...

Church across from steps up to the Uhrturn, or Clock Tower at the top of the Schlossberg, the hill that stands over the town.

Steps up to the Clock Tower. There is a furnicular railway that goes up, but it was not running on Sunday. CJ was tired and Kevin didn't feel like packing Piper to the top, so I hiked up and back with our oldest. He's getting pretty fast, I could barely keep up!

View of Graz from the top of the Schlossberg.

The model of the Clock Tower.

Description of the Clock Tower.

View of the Clock Tower from the bottom. We saw that it was being restored, but thought that maybe on top a side was open to view. It wasn't, which was quite disappointing. That is why I have pictures of the model and the descriptive sign.

View across the Mur River.

The Murinsel, a modern bridge and ampitheater over the Mur River.

After touring around Graz, we continued south into the southern tip of Austria to Bad Radkersburg, a small town where my Mom and her family lived after WWII. It was a quaint and pretty little town on the Mur River, just across from modern day Slovenia.

Hauptplatz, or town center, in Bad Radkersburg, facing west.

Hauptplatz, facing east.

Rathaus, or town hall, and tower.

The boys and I in front of the Rathaus.

Stadtpfarrkirche, or St. Johannes.

Viewed from the park just west.

South view of Langgasse, the street on the west end of the Hauptplatz.

Frauenkirche, on the southeast side of the Hauptplatz.

The Gasthof, this is where we ate dinner. It was a wonderful typical Austrian meal complete with schnitzel, potatoes, spaetzle and the local beer and wine.

If I could read this, I would tell you more about it.

Oh, and Kevin thought we were so close to Hungary, we just had to drive over the border to say we were there. Late at night. Let me just tell a quick story: we were on such little back roads our GPS gave up on us and sent us into an eternal loop. We were on these gravel roads in what appeared to be the West Virginia of Austria/Slovenia/Hungary. We weren't even sure what country we were in for a while. Thankfully, we got out of the loop, and found the Hungarian border. We crossed over for about 2 minutes, then headed back to Bad Radkersburg for the night. Even Kevin was a little disconcerted about our trip to the Twilight Zone.

This is the Grazertorplatz, the inscription reads 'In diesem hause erlernte um 1878 das Schlosser-handwerk'. I wish Mom had taught me some German!

Here is the building in daylight.

This was our hotel on the southern edge of town, by the Mur River. It was a cute little Mom and Pop hotel complete with a full breakfast in the restaurant below the hotel.

Our hotel is there on the left, this is looking up the Langgasse north towards the Hauptplatz, at the tower of the Rathaus.

Entry into the Frauenplatz in front of the Frauenkirche.

Statue in the middle of the Hauptplatz.

South view of the Hauptplatz, with the Rauthaus and Tower in the corner.

North view of the Hauptplatz.

I know it was a lot of pictures for such a little town, but I tried to get a feel for this town and also hope that my Mom or her siblings will recognize some of the pictures.

Since we were so far south, our GPS routed us home through Slovenia and Italy. We enjoyed the scenic drive and stopped in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.

The Triple Bridge in Ljubljana.

Ljubljana Castle on the bluff in the background.

Statue of France Prešeren, a Slovenian National Poet.

Franciscan Church of the Annunciation.

Model of Ljubljana. Our boys loved these models.

We didn't really spend much time in Ljubljana as we were headed home.

We did make one final stop, in Trieste, Italy. It was worth it to see the sun setting on the Adriatic Sea in this beautiful city with a blend of Germanic, Latin and Slavic cultures.

Piazza Unità d'Italia, the central plaza of Trieste.

Roman style building in Trieste.

Sun setting on the Adriatic Sea.

Miramare Castle in the background.

Miramare Castle from the northern side with Trieste in the background.

Final sunset over the Adriatic Sea.