It is afternoon and we are sitting in a cafe away from the city center. There must be 200,000 people here because we just went along with the crowd. We took the funicular to the castle- see pic. And of course took a pic from the highest point overlooking the city. The whole town is in party mode! I have taken pics of the cafe – which is off the beaten path – so you can imagine the rest of the town.

I ordered an Aperol spritzer and Marsha had another pink drink. Both are refreshing. Weather has been nice during the day and cool at night.

I don’t have wifi at this hotel so you may get several days at one time.
We boarded an Austrian train early in the am. It had a restaurant car so we decided to have breakfast on the train. See pic of dining car. We both had cream of asparagus soup (see pic) and Marsha had a croissant and I had a roll and butter. The baked good were warm so we enjoyed our breakfast.
As usual we got into Graz and checked into our hotel. We headed for the Old City and went to the tourist info office. They had a pamphlet of self guided walking tours which are very good. We did a couple if them and I took a lot of pics on my camera besides the ones on the phone. The one is a 500 year old double spiral staircase.
We did not realize Graz is having a festival. Everyone is wearing dirndls and lederhosen. Whole families are in traditional dress and there is folk music at several locations in the town. See pic of Marsha and I drinking a local drink. We ordered food from where we were in a courtyard at one of the events. Marsha had a mushroom chili with a dumpling and I had something that had ham, pork, potatoes and other vegetables. There was singing and dancing and everyone seemed to be having a good time. It is like a mini Octoberfest. Tomorrow Graz is expecting 100,000 people to attend the festivities. Marsha and I plan to attend after we see the castle.