Graz and I got off to a wobbly start. It had not been easy navigating through the unfamiliar and busy streets to our accommodation, and when we arrived we found that there was no parking...oh great! Morale was low by the time we had deposited the car in a nearby carpark building and returned to our room for the second time (not helped by the fact that all I had eaten that day was a croissant which we stopped for in Klagenfurt). With the old town on our doorstep we set out to orientate ourselves and hopefully find some late lunch (it was about 3:30pm). Feeling like a slowly deflating balloon, I followed after Dale as he led me about the student filled streets, past the grand old buildings of the past, and the chain store frontages of the present. After an hour of walking we still hadn't found anywhere more tempting to grab a bite to eat than a cart selling bratwurst. Calling upon my rusty high school German, I ordered Dale a sausage with mustard and bread roll. Put off by the glistening chunks of fat in the sausage, I declined Dale's offer to share it with me. In the end, despairing at our inability to find a supermarket, I gave up on finding food and returned to our room for a nap. Determined Dale continued with the supermarket search and ultimately returned triumphantly clutching a bag of goodies - cheese, crackers, salami, beer and chocolate! But Graz wasn't finished with us yet...

The following day got off to a promising start with bright sunshine and a generous complementary breakfast spread - including fresh honey comb dripping golden honey, homemade Bircher muesli, fresh rolls and jam, coffee, eggs, and something called 'vitamin juice'. We decided to follow our map's recommended city walk, so that we could be sure not to miss the best that the city has to offer. Dodging trams, we made our way to the main square with its elaborately decorated town hall and central fountain in which stands a statue of Archduke Johann. A little further on, we came to the Landhaus courtyard 'a masterpiece of Italian Renaissance' (according to our map) and the Armoury which houses the world's largest collection of historical weapons. The history geek in me was particularly looking forward to this part of the tour. When we arrived at the huge double door entrance surround by carved stone lions and other motifs, the sign read "Open daily (except Tuesday)" - it was Tuesday. Spluttering furiously at the inconsiderate tendency of European Museums to pick a random weekday to remain closed, I consulted the map again for our next destination. This turned out to be the Gothic arcade of Hof Des Deutschen Ritterordens - not quite as interesting as an armoury - followed by the cathedral and the mausoleum commissioned by Kaiser Ferdinand II. The cathedral has a fresco on one of its walls depicting the three plagues which afflicted the area in 1480 - the Black Death, locusts, and the Turks!

The city museum was also closed on Tuesdays (!?!?!), so we decided to go up the Schlossberg to see the remains of the city's fortress (which Napolean had destroyed after the city's surrender). During the second world war a lengthy system of tunnels was built inside the Schlossberg to serve as an air raid shelter for up to 40,000 people. We entered one of these tunnels to get the glass lift to the top. High above the city we could see across the rooftops to the countryside beyond Graz (with the odd castle turret poking out of the landscape). On top of the Schlossberg itself stand a clock tower and a bell tower spared by Napolean after the the citizens of Graz paid a ransom for the towers' survival. Also on top of the Schlossberg is the Turkish Well dug between 1554 and 1558 (supposedly by Turkish prisoners). It is over 90 metres deep, which my scientific husband confirmed by throwing our remaining Croatian coins in and counting the seconds until they hit the bottom! (An impressive 11 seconds)

We took a break in the beer garden, admiring the views and remarking on the unusual dog breeds that passed by us (Europeans really are mad about their dogs!), then descended the stairs cut into the cliff face by prisoners of war during WWI. Having finished our tour of historical Graz, we set off to somewhere more contemporary, the newly built art gallery which looks something like a large glass lung lying on its side with stubby arteries protruding from its roof. These 'arteries' turned out to be skylights, and the exhibitions housed inside turned out to be just as modern as the building itself.

We found a funky lunch stop near our accommodation where we shared some Austrian-style tapas. Marinated chicken on ratatouille, mushroom goulash with dumpling, lamb cutlet with mustard, a Styrian salad of lettuce, cabbage, potatoes and beans, and a cream cheese dumpling with stewed apricots for dessert. By this stage I had forgiven Graz for the frustration it had caused us, but was happy to agree to Dale's suggestion that we take a break from sight seeing for some more Olympic viewing!

I managed to satisfy my desire to see the Armoury on Wednesday when it was once again open for business. Four floors of matchlock guns, anti-cavalry defensive obstacles, suits of armour, flintlocks, muskets, pistols, helmets, chain mail, shields, curved swords, straight swords, two handed swords, powder horns, halberds, pikes and maces - I was in history geek heaven! (Dale just rolled his eyes at my 10-year-old-boy-like enthusiasm for the medieval instruments of war)

Then it was time to leave Graz, heading back to Slovenia for a few more days of summer before London!