Off the Beaten Path in Graz (With Training Wheels): How an Audio Guide Helped Me Venture beyond the Old Town

They say the third time is the charm. Graz charmed me on my first visit, but the third one taught me there is charmed, and there is charmed. Armed with the new Graz Uncovered audio guide in my ear, I set out to find the off-the-beaten-path Graz: a pilgrimage site twenty minutes from the centre, a cocktail bar tucked inside an airplane, and a tree-lined avenue of Art Nouveau facades I did not even know existed. And that is only the beginning.

Many a traveler visiting Graz, Austria, sticks to the postcard-perfect historical center. Candy-colored Renaissance and Baroque facades, thought-provoking museums, a staggering number of ice cream stops (the dream).

Little squares spill over with wine bars, coffee houses, and restaurants serving everything from traditional Styrian fare to flavors from further afield. Above it all looms the Schlossberg, accessible by stairs, elevator, or, believe it or not, a slide. And let us not forget those green and yellow vintage trams clattering through town.

That is exactly what I did on my first two trips to Graz, and it was marvelous. The allure of the well-trodden path is real. But the city has more to give. Much more. This guide is for those looking to find the hidden gems in Graz. Venturing into the unknown, with a little help from a trusted audio guide.

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Trip to Graz: Quick Planning Guide

USEFUL READING: Sustainable travel in Graz; Plan your walking tour including refill stations for water

TOURISM OFFICE: Tourist Information Graz Region, Herrengasse 16, 8010 Graz, Austria

OFFICIAL TOURISM WEBSITE: Graz Tourismus

Graz Uncovered: The Audio Guide Behind My Third Visit

My mom always jokes that when sense of direction was being handed out, they skipped me altogether. I have a knack for getting lost absolutely everywhere, even in my hometown of just 13,000 inhabitants. Obviously, I pursued the only logical career: travel blogging. Perpetually lost with a camera in hand is now my unofficial job description. It sounds fabulous, doesn’t it? It also makes for a fair dose of pre-trip stress.

So when the team at Visit Graz reached out about a new app designed to take the guesswork out of going off the beaten path, I jumped at the chance to stress-test it. That app is Graz Uncovered, a GPS-guided audio guide built by travel writer Dan Clarke (better known as Dan Flying Solo) together with the team at Visit Graz.

I first met Dan in Graz in 2025, during the three months he spent researching for the project. I remember how worried he was that three months would not be enough to do the city justice, and how genuinely passionate he was about it. Fast forward a year, and he has condensed that work into nine audio-guided routes: three through Graz itself, and six day trips into the surrounding Region of Graz.

For someone with my sense of direction, the design is a gift. The audio plays automatically at each stop, and the GPS hands you off to Google Maps or Apple Maps for the walking directions. Off the beaten path, yes. But with guardrails. The places mentioned below are part of city routes 2 and 3 and give you an inkling of the wealth of information hidden inside this app.

DOWNLOAD THE APP: The app is available in the Apple App Store and on Google Play.

Lend: Graz’s Off-the-Beaten-Path Creative Quarter

For decades, Lend was Graz’s working-class district. Sitting on the western bank of the Mur River, it housed factories, markets, and a railway terminal. It was lively, very local, but perhaps not exactly the part of town you would venture into as a first-time tourist visiting Graz.

That changed in 2003, when Graz was named European Capital of Culture, and the Kunsthaus opened. This oddly shaped building – you either love it or hate it – is affectionately called the Friendly Alien by locals. This art gallery became a veritable magnet for artists, students, and intrepid travelers.

The ball really got rolling in 2011 when UNESCO designated Graz a City of Design, with the Lend district at the heart of that recognition. Galleries, design studios, and street art mushroomed up overnight. I spent a fair amount of time on my last trip to Graz in and around Lend. The Mariahilfer Straße is a great place to start, as it has a plethora of socially conscious shops, vegan restaurants, and, of course, the Kulturhaus itself.

READ MORE | A sustainable weekend in Graz: Platbased scoops and vintage shopping in Lend

1. Street art in Lend

I have always been drawn to street art. And Lend delivered! Walls ablaze with a riot of color, many of them once the drab faces of working factories. Some are festooned with fairy lights, hung with contemporary artworks, or marked with splashes of graffiti. Yet you would not always know you could step inside. The Hornig Areal and Raum 117 are two such places. I had peeked at both through the fence on previous visits, never realizing they were open to the public.

The former, the site of the former J. Hornig coffee roastery. The buildings have been undergoing dismantling since 2023. In the meantime, the site has been opened to temporary cultural use. The latter, Raum 117, sits inside the former Stahl-Eberhardt steel hall. A collective took over the empty industrial hall in 2022 and turned it into ateliers, studios, and an exhibition space. The outside walls are covered in large-scale graffiti, making it a free outdoor gallery.

With Dan whispering in my ear via the Graz Uncovered I finally had a bit more context about both sites and realised I could satisfy my curiosity and wander inside. So obviously I did!

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2. Smart City

Just down the road from the Hornig Areal site lies the Smart City development. It is not the prettiest stretch of Graz at first glance, but do not be too hasty to brush it off. Smart City rises on a former railway yard just north of the main train station, and has been under development since 2013.

What makes this part of Graz so cool? It is an entirely new neighborhood, made up of energy-efficient buildings, wide cycling lanes, frequent trams, and a solid mix of housing, offices, and public green spaces. The whole project is designed to aim for low emissions and energy self-sufficiency. I truly hope the rest of Europe uses this district as a blueprint for urban expansion.

In some respects, it reminds me of Almere (Flevoland) in the Netherlands: the planned new city across the water from Amsterdam. Both places are designed from scratch with sustainability built into the brief. Where Almere has had nearly fifty years to morph into a city, the Smart City district still needs a little time to feel as vibrant as other parts of Graz.

That, however, does not mean it does not have its fair share of hotspots. Grab a cup of coffee at Paul & Bohne, a local coffee roaster, before heading to Bäckerei Sorger Smart City, the newest branch of one of Graz’s long-running family bakeries. They have excellent value-for-money lunch menus! Both are within walking distance of the above-mentioned Raum 117.

TIP | We stayed right in this part of town at Harry’s Home Smart City. Part of the family-run Harry’s Home Group, the first hotel group in Austria to hold both the Austrian and EU Ecolabel certification. A convenient 15 min walk from the Graz Hauptbahnhof and a 13 min tramride to the city centre.

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3. Farmer’s Market

Graz’s farmers’ markets are an integral part of city life. Each morning, growers from the surrounding Styrian countryside set up stalls at Lendplatz and Kaiser-Josef-Platz, selling heirloom produce, herbs, jams, and bread by the loaf. Refreshingly, prices sit on par with the supermarket. Fresh, local, seasonal food, accessible to anyone walking past.

One simply cannot visit Graz without at least one meal, a glass of wine, or a conversation with a new local friend at the market. Lendplatz is the smaller market of the two, and positively bustling with people from as early as 06.00 am. As the stalls are packed away later in the day, the square transforms into a makeshift skatepark for local youngsters. It was where I spent a lot of my time on my previous trip to Graz.

During my third visit, I opted to explore the market on the Kaiser-Josef-Platz. Eateries spill from the stalls onto the square, plates piled with whatever the day’s harvest delivered. We had dinner at Genießerei am Markt, a restaurant set inside an actual market stall. Asparagus, kohlrabi, and beetroot served in ways that would have even a vegetable-averse foodie asking for seconds.

On our last evening, we came back to the same square to rub shoulders with locals having an after-work drink. Alas, our adventure was cut short when we were caught in a torrential downpour, or so we thought.

Wine glass in hand, we hugged the wall of one of the food stalls, huddled under a thin overhanging roof. Wind was sweeping hail across the market. Lightning illuminated the sky in blue and pink tones. The locals around us kept calmly drinking Prosecco, chatting, smiling, as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world.

There is truly no better metaphor than this to describe Grazers: utterly unfazed, happy-go-lucky, and always up for a glass of bubbly, no matter what the world throws at them.

PRACTICAL TIP| For the full experience, aim for Friday or Saturday. Terraces and colorful chairs spill out onto both squares as both the markets and their visitors double.

A Drink at Nova Air, Graz’s Most Unusual Rooftop Bar

OPENING HOURS | 04.00 pm – 01.00 am; closed on Sunday
ADDRESS | Fischeraustraße 22, 8051 Graz, Austria

Route two ends 22 metres in the air, inside an Ilyushin Il-62M that has been retired from active service, hauled onto the roof of an aircraft hotel, and transformed into one of Europe’s more genuinely unusual bars.

Nova Air, technically the 80s Flieger Bar and Restaurant, sits atop the family-run NOVAPARK Flugzeughotel in northern Graz. On the bus ride over, I could not decide if this place would be painfully cringeworthy or the coolest thing in the city. Thankfully, it was the latter.

I knew I was in for a riot when the receptionist greeted me in a full pilot uniform and directed me upstairs to my chariots: two retired commercial airliners. A former baseball team Boeing 727-200 now houses the dinner-only Restaurant Boeing, while the Ilyushin, once a Czech Airlines passenger plane and later the official aircraft of Czechoslovak president Gustáv Husák, became the bar.

Inside, everything is gloriously retro. Tina Turner blasted through the cabin speakers as the bartender, immaculate in his pilot uniform and armed with the thickest Austrian accent imaginable, helped me order a cocktail through a mix of context clues and hand gestures; my Austrian clearly needs work. Drink in hand, I sat looking out toward the Schlossberg, wondering why in the world I had not known about this bar on my previous visits!

GOOD TO KNOW | Entry to view the planes is free, even if you only want to peek at the cockpits without ordering.

Discover the Herzu Jesu Kirche in Old Town Graz

OPENINGHOURS | 07.00 am – 07.00 pm
ADDRESS | Sparbersbachgasse 58, 8010 Graz, Austria

The first surprise at Herz-Jesu Kirche was not the church itself. It was the little park in front of it, alive with children shrieking with laughter and chasing a football across the grass. Bicycles lay scattered across the lawn, abandoned in the rush to do what children do best: be children.

Herz-Jesu, also known as the Church of the Sacred Heart, is the largest church in Graz. Designed by architect Georg Hauberrisser, it was built between 1881 and 1887, funded entirely by donations from local residents. Its Neo-Gothic tower stands 109.6 meters tall, making it the third-tallest church tower in Austria and definitely not a hidden spot in Graz. Yet somehow, I managed to skip it on my previous two visits.

Inside, the stained glass windows are among the few remaining examples of Neo-Gothic stained glass in the country. The church is absolutely worth a visit, but my favorite part was definitely sitting on the main steps with the afternoon sun warming my face while indulging in the age-old art of people watching.

More Off-the-Beaten-Path Stops in Graz: The Green Side

Route two focuses primarily on the Lend district, while route three is all about discovering the green spaces inside the city. These little oases of tranquility were probably my personal highlights of Graz and are well worth folding into any trip to the city. If you are short on time and unable to complete route three, keep a small pocket of time for these three spots:

HILMTEICH | A small artificial lake on the eastern edge of the city, originally a nineteenth-century clay pit. The miniature castle, dating to 1858, now houses a restaurant and garden centre. Wonderful place to grab a spot of lunch!

BOTANICAL GARDENS | A short walk from Hilmteich. Free to enter. Three slanting glasshouses designed by architect Volker Giencke in 1995 hold four different climate zones inside. Feels like you have walked straight into a futuristic movie as you walk across the myriad of metal bridges suspended inside the glasshouses.

BASILIKA MARIATROST | A baroque pilgrimage church on a wooded hill north of the city, built between 1714 and 1724. Elevated to basilica minor by Pope John Paul II in 1999, and the second most important Marian shrine in Styria after Mariazell. Beware, you might end up with a crick in your neck from prolonged gaping at the impressive frescoed ceiling.

Where to Stay in Graz

How to Visit Graz More Sustainably

FILL THAT WATERBOTTLE: Water from the tap is drinkable, and what’s more, the city is dotted with 120 spots to refill your water bottle. Keep an eye out for the Refill Austria sticker on the door of shops, cafes, and bars. These establishments will fill your water bottle for you. Or, alternatively, do so at one of the many water fountains.

CYCLING IN AND AROUND GRAZ: Graz is a very bicycle-friendly city, with the local authorities set on making Graz the “Bicycle Capital of Austria”; you can expect an extensive network of well-maintained cycling paths.

SUPPORT COMMUNITY LED PROJECTS: There are plenty of community-led little stores you can purchase souvenirs from, including TAG.WERK and Herzlich Laden.

Vegetarian Restaurants in Graz

Word of caution to the vegans and vegetarians heading to the city: Pack your stretchy pants, because mouthwatering plant-based options are a staple on just about every menu. Graz is the culinary capital of Austria, and you are about to find out just how deserving it is of this title.

Seasonality is not just a whim; it is part and parcel of the local culinary offering. Most restaurants will adapt their menu based on the season. Do not expect to find the same avocado toast, mango poké bowl, or acai bowl type of vegetarian fare that is traditionally associated with plant-based restaurants.

SPEISS AM LENDHAFEN: Did someone say vegan schnitzel? Or a crunchy salad with Käferbohnen (Styrian scarlet runner beans) sprinkled with pumpkinseed oil? This vegan restaurant has delicious seasonal dishes from the Styrian region.

DIE EISPERLE: Creamy plant-based ice cream like you never had before. Voted Austria’s best vegan ice cream, their seasonal flavors (Mar–Nov) draw consistent praise for taste, quality, and friendly service

GENIßEREI AM MARK: A restaurant set inside an actual market stall. Uses ingredients that are fresh off the market, seasonality done right! Asparagus, kohlrabi, and beetroot served in ways that would have even a vegetable-averse foodie asking for seconds.

HUMMEL: Fingerlicking Leventanine cuisine with a zero-waste ethic. Slightly more upscale than the other vegetarian restaurants on the list, but worth every penny. Make sure to book in advance, as it is a popular spot among the locals.

KUNSTHAUSCAFE: Located inside Graz’s iconic contemporary art museum, this chic café offers breakfast, brunch, burgers, great coffee, and evening cocktails.

CAFE ERDE: This little vegan cafe has been around since 2012 and continues to be a local favorite. Super relaxed vibe, affordable dishes made with seasonal ingredients.

CAFE GREENHOUSE: A family-run plant-filled vegan café nestled on Herrengasse. They have the most delicious selection of fresh sandwiches, cold-pressed juices, smoothies, house-baked cakes, and salads.

FREIBLICK TAGESCAFE: Nestled atop the iconic Kastner & Öhler department store. This café, eatery gives you the very best view over the city, in my opinion. On a sunny day, it is jam-packed. Caters to both vegetarians and vegans.

FAQ Exploring Graz

Do I need the Graz Uncovered app to explore Graz?

The short answer is, no, you do not. That being said, it is immensely helpful to find lesser-known places in Graz to explore. It takes the guesswork out of it, provides an easy-to-follow itinerary, and gives a well-researched context for each location.

Where can I download the Graz Uncovered app?

The app is available in the Apple App Store and on Google Play.

How many days do I need to visit Graz?

This is my third visit to the city, which makes the total time I have spent in Graz roughly 6 days. Dan (your narrator on the app) spent three months exploring. For a first visit, I would spend at least 3-5 days, preferably more if you have the time.

This article was sponsored by the Graz Tourism Board. All opinions, stories and images are my own.

MORE TRAVEL RESOURCES FOR VISITING EUROPE

Austria: Visiting Ischgl in Summer
Austria: A sustainable weekend in Graz: Platbased scoops and vintage shopping in Lend
Belgium: 3 to 5 day Belgium itinerary
Belgium: 16 Castles you can actually stay in Belgium
Brussels: Local guide on which areas to stay, and which ones to avoid!
Brussels: Two-day itinerary for the perfect weekend in Brussels
Antwerp: How to spend a weekend in Antwerp
Liège:10 Reasons why you should visit Liège
Further afield: Visiting Vianden Castle in Luxembourg

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