From Vienna to Graz

Kapellen

First of all, I hope you didn’t all groan too much at the Ultravox Vienna lyrics I dropped into in the last post!

Our next stop after Vienna was Kapellen, a small village half way along the road to Graz. Again we took the motorway, with the GoBox merrily beeping each time we passed under a road toll gantry. As we approached Kapellen, the GoBox started to beep twice each time indicating that the credit was running low, which was rather worrying as we’d pre-loaded it with €75, and this was only our second journey.

The stellplatz at Kapellen was great, one of the better ones we’ve stayed on. It was next-door to a disused railway station which had been turned into a café/bar, and the railway track was now a cycle path. It was lovely and quiet, with a fast free WiFi signal which came in handy as it poured down with rain for most of the afternoon. When it wasn’t raining, we went for a walk along the cycle path, and into the nearby village.

I managed to register with the GoBox website, and found out that our two rides along the motorways had cost €40, so we set the sat nav up to avoid toll roads for the journey to Graz.

Graz

The first part of the journey to Graz took us right up into the mountains, with narrow lanes and loads of hairpin bends. In places the road surfaces were poor, but at least we weren’t paying a fortune in tolls, and the scenery was amazing.

We arrived in Graz in time for a late lunch. The stellplatz here is owned by the same people as Vienna, so it was laid out in a similar way; it even had the same code number to get into the toilet block.

In the afternoon, we popped over to the coffee hut for a wine tasting, and came away with just the one bottle of red. We also tried the schnapps, but that tasted disgusting.

This morning we caught a bus into the town centre. With a 24 hour travel card, we could use the trams as well, good value for €5.10.

Graz is Austria’s second city and is also a UNESCO World Heritage site, so there’s quite a lot to see. Our first port of call was the Schloßberg, a steep hill with a clock tower on the top, commanding spectacular views over the city. We took the hundreds of stairs up, but couldn’t face the climb down, taking the lift instead.

Fortunately the weather was warm and sunny, just as forecast. We spent the rest of the day mooching around town, and it really is a lovely place. There’s not a huge amount to do though, so I’m not sure we’d come here for a long weekend.

Mike