We did Graz pretty much on the run. Considered the time we had, we still accomplished quite a bit. Miraculously, despite the midst of the summer the opera had shows on - Umberto Jordano's André Chenier was starting in just about an hour. Frothing and panting, we rushed to the hotel to change from the hiking shoes and cargo shorts into fine tailored suits we luckily had in the hotel. You don't want to look shabby in an Austrian opera house.
Instead of a swish pre-opera dinner, we had to make do with crackers and juice in the car desperately trying to cool down in the air-conditioned air - but it turned out well worth it all. Often, opera singers take my fancy for the sheer technicality and power of their voices but this time the tenor and soprano protagonists' were far beyond that, they were ripping my heart from its very bottom, making me well up and carrying me away on the wings of their inspiration. 'Whoa, if they sing like this in the province, what is it like in Vienna then, whoa whoa whoa!', thought yours truly in bewilderment. Well, well, well, they both turned out to be Russian.
Graz stands on the watershed of the Mediterranean and Alpine Germanic zones. Geographically, it is closer to the latter but through the efforts of its feudal sovereigns a great number of Italian architects took part in creating the cityscape that we can enjoy today. One feature that signifies this cultural marriage are the ornately adorned buildings you can see here and there, covered with the cross of Italians sgraffito and Bavarian lüftlmalerei.
Amongst the red shingle rooves of comely burger houses sits something that looks like a discarded tumor of a giant alien. Organically shaped, weirdly coloured and covered with what appears as suction cups - it is the Kunsthaus Graz, the Museum of Modern Art. Its aesthetic virtues may be contestable but the novelty factor is definitely there. It serves the city wishing to cast its boring petit bourgeois image quite right. Most of all, it reminds of pierced nipples on a middle-aged accountant, married with three children.- Austro-Hungary - In The Wake Of A Bygone Realm
- Free Port Trieste and Miramare Palace
- Slovenia - Triglav, Ljubljana, Bled and the Adriatic
- Hungarian Countryside - Wine, Hot Springs & Palaces
- Budapest - Figaro, Turkish Baths & The Synagogue
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