Graz, Austria, recently bore its very own Metblog, a good sign that there's something to love about Austria's second city. No, the fact that the Governator was born in one of its suburbs doesn't count. We're thinking more the lines of a breezy, creative spirit created by Graz's huge student population. For a rough comparison, consider it the Boston of Austria: you know, half of your friends went to college there.
Graz is close to Hungary and Slovenia, and about a three-hour train ride away from Vienna. Its old town neighborhood (pictured) is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We're not usually the antiquing type, but are eager to try it along Graz's well-known Sackstrasse now that Metblogs points us to a world war figurine window display that's thrown a cow and giraffe into battle. It's the little things, people.
For lodging in Graz, try the Augarten design hotel for $146 a night. They've also got apartments available for a few bucks more.
If you're not cooking your own food in your apartment at the Augarten, stop for a meal at Iohan (that's a capital "i"--nothing to do with Lindsay), and enjoy your Austrian wine under its pretty vaulted ceiling.
Just watch out for those vigilante tour guides on your walk home.
An art museum in Vienna, who somewhat ripped off the MOMA name, is currently showing a pretty wacky exhibition.
The Museum Moderner Kunst (Museum of Modern Art) in Austria's capital allowed local sculptor Erwin Wurm to hire a couple of cranes, create a house-shaped and house-sized sculpture, and drop it onto the roof.
Okay, a little more care was taken than that, but the end effect is the same, with a small house that looks like it fell from the sky hanging on the edge of the tall museum's roof. Wurm says it's all a protest against over-development. Does this mean he doesn't like Extreme Home Makeover?
And what happens when his next protest is against people or entire cities--will he tip them on top of the museum, too? Someone may want to review this artist's funding.
From the same continent that brought you the story of the man who got his balls stuck in the slats of a wooden beach chair on the coast of Croatia, we bring you a story that's much, much worse. In fact, we recommend that all male readers look away for a second.
Move a little north of Croatia and you'll come to Austria. Home to apple strudel and once home to Arnie, it's normally a quiet enough country. But this week, the whole nation heard a terribly loud scream when a 59-year-old man from Jennersdorf did something bad. We can't type it ourselves:
He shot a four-inch nail into his left testicle with a compressed air nail gun. He was unable to extract it or pull himself away from the roof.
Somehow the emergency guys got him loose and airlifted him to surgery, fast--and now he's doing OK. Don't think about it too much.
Fifteen years ago this week, two German tourists uncovered Ötzi the Iceman in the Austrian alps. That was over 5000 years after poor Ötzi hung up his boots, so he quickly came to fame as the world's oldest natural human mummy.
Of course, 15 years is just a drop in the ocean compared to how long his body's been hanging around on earth, but we want to look back and check how his 15 years of fame have been for this otherwise average kind of guy--5 foot 3 and in his mid 40s when he died. Scientific research over this period has been able to tell us his last two meals, the clothes he wore and the fact that he had 57 tattoos. And just this week, they worked out he died of an arrow wound to a vital artery, and probably died within minutes.
Poor guy. Just minutes to die, but thousands of years to hang around and have people prodding, poking and examining you. Keep an eye out on your alpine treks for any of his mates who could keep him company.
We are big fans of Friedensreich Hundertwasser's funky design style, whether the artistic result is jewelry, art or architecture. Combine that with the luxury of a thermal bathing experience and a resort with no two windows alike and we're in some kind of heaven. Even if it is an expensive kind of heaven.
The Rogner Bad Blumau spa resort in south-eastern Austria is really a one-of-a-kind. Windy corridors with crazily irregular tiles (and hazardous lumps and bumps on the paths that would never pass safety regulations elsewhere) lead to a relaxing collection of baths and in particular the Vulkania hot spring, bubbling under the motto of "No spring is hotter or more mineralized". The symbolic volcano at the end of the lake is a tad on the tacky side, but usually you'll be too relaxed to care.
You can either visit the bath resort on a day ticket or stay at the hotel, but remember in keeping with the "wellness" theme, the huge buffet breakfast will be full of organic foods and anyone looking for colorful cereals will be frowned at: Those sometimes serious Austrians probably won't crack a smile at a "Lucky Charms, bitte?" request.
Need justification to shell out loads of cash for jewelry? It's easy if you think of it as part of a cultural development and knowledge improvement program. Austrian jeweler Frey Wille now has branches around the world--Beijing, St Petersburg, LA, Islamabad and Prague, to name a few--and their funky collections of rings, bangles and pendants are designed based on famous names like Monet, Klimt and Hundertwasser. The home and heart of Frey Wille lies in Vienna, a perfect place for heating up the credit card a bit.
Frey Wille's mission is to "measure up to our customers' love for art and culture", but it doesn't stop there: They would also like their jewelry "to awaken emotions and give your feelings expression". We'd wager that seeing those price tags is guaranteed to awaken some emotions.
On the other hand, you could just buy a not-really-from-Vienna but they-like-to-think-so Mozart ball and say that stuffing chocolate in your mouth is your cultural activity of choice.
It's Mozart Year--what are you waiting for? Vienna claims he's the most famous Austrian ever (sorry, Austrians, you forgot Hitler), and what better spot to bone up on your Mozart than at Vienna's Haus Der Musik. It's a solid mix of interactive fun and need-to-know trivia, featuring displays on the man of the moment and other star Austrian composers like Beethoven and Strauss. You could be forgiven for momentarily thinking you're back in music history class, until you step into halls full of wacky sound experiments. Ever wanted to know what a cow in a cathedral sounds like?
A highlight is discovering just how difficult it is to conduct an orchestra. A clever display uses real-life video of the Vienna Philharmonic and an electronic baton. Waving your arm in a professional way gets the musicians playing harmoniously. Looks simple, but be warned: demand an uneven beat and the musicians get cranky; be totally unskilled and they'll lay their instruments down and angrily walk off stage. But don't feel alone, that's exactly what happened to us. Naturally, the six-year-old who stepped up to follow seemed to make the musos happy again. Of course, he's the next Mozart.
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by djk
