2011 - Switzerland, Austria - Day 6 - Graz, Piber, and Klagenfurt, Austria

This morning we left Vienna and headed South to Graz. I think Austria is the prettiest country I have seen so far. I love the beautiful drives. Everything is green and hilly with wildflowers and beautiful mountain ranges and houses with churches. We had a lunch stop in Graz. It was another Renaissance style city, with beautiful churches and building and cobblestone streets. Amber and I climbed ¾ of the way up to a beautiful clock tower. We didn’t have a lot of time, or we would have gone all the way up. My legs are getting sore from all the stair climbing we have done. But I love it! We stopped at a bakery and bought a cheese pastry for lunch. It was really good, but sweet. Then we had a yummy cake a couple hours later, more sweet, so it left me feeling a little nauseous. Our next stop was in Piber to see the stud farm of the Lipizzaner horses. As we were driving to Piber, we watched a film about the horses and the farm . They are the famous Austrian horses that the royal family used for four centuries. Now they are trained in a Spanish riding school and do shows. They are all white or black. Mostly white. All are born brown or black, and change lighter as they get older. By 8-10 years old, they are white. We took an hour tour of the farm and saw the horses and several newborns. Afterward we went in the café and had some cake. We ordered 2 different kinds, but didn’t really like one of them, so they gave us a third slice of lemon crème cake, which was delicious! After the farm, we headed to our hotel in Klagenfurt. We were served dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was broth with sliced pancakes soup (really good), meatloaf with mashed potatoes and veggies and apricot cake. Amber and I then walked to the city square to get a picture of the dragon statue.