I have been to Graz for several days earlier this year and I can tell you that this town has much more to offer than just the famous Clock Tower (Uhrturm) for which it is known.

Football fans might remember that one of the teams based here (Sturm Graz) played (and lost) against Manchester United in the Champions League.

If you drive to Graz by car, please bear in mind that - unlike in other Austrian towns - there is a very strict speed limit of 30 km/h with the exception of some priority roads where you are allowed to drive at a maximum speed of 50 km/h (it did cost me approx. GBP 25.- to be too fast).

Graz is known as the Green Town because there is a lot of green in the town, like extensive parks and gardens and the famous Schlossberg hill (details follow below). Even the trams are green (at least there were green originally before some of them were turned into moving commercials by allowing companies to paint the trams with their product advertisments).

There is an airport in Graz, but I doubt that you will find any direct flights form the UK. The only available options are via Zurich, Frankfurt Munich or Vienna.

You should then walk down the Annenstrasse towards the town centre. Annenstrasse is known to be the most famous shopping street in Graz (and it is the most expensive property in Graz in the Austrian version of Monopoly).

On your way, apart from the shops, you will see a number of quite old houses including a very old (but still operational) hospital and pharmacy.

Luegg house, for example, is known for its stucco facade dating back to the 17th century, whereas the Landhaus (seat of the local parliament) is a remarkable renaissance building.

The Uhrturm (clock tower) has large dials on all four sides. And the strange thing with those dials is that they are wrong, and you might be confused when you look at it. The long hand points to the hour and the short hand points to the minute!

Schloss Eggenberg (situated within Graz, about 4 km from the centre to the west) is one of the finest palaces that you can see in the whole area. It was built to the current style between 1625 and 1635 by Italian architects, as home of the Eggenberg family.

Inside, you should visit the Baroque Apartments (Prunkräume) on the second floor, still in the original decoration of the 18th century, baroque style, a lot of stucco and fine paintings as well as some of the original furniture.

It is a two hours walk up into the forest, and there have been rebuilt more than 50 rural homes and their dependencies from the different regions of Austria. You can also see a historic shop, some farms, a church and a school. A sawmill, smits and mills complete the picture of the formar rural community in Austria.

If you like horses, then this is certainly for you. The world famous Stud Farm of Piber, where the white horses (Lippizaner) are trained before they come to the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.

We have seen about 35 horses that were born a few months ago. They did not yet have the typical white colour of the Lippizaners, this will take until they get 4 - 7 years old.

Graz is a very nice city, which is normally not the first choice for tourists that come to Austria (Vienna and Salzburg attract much more tourists), but I think that Graz has a lot to offer, too.