Advent in Graz from just €65!
Every December, Christmas revelers around the world engage in a friendly competition to see who can produce the most spectacular decorations or find the most thoughtful gift. In Graz, this is elevated to an art form.
Come December, the merchants in Graz's Christmas markets up the ante with light formations more stunning than their neighbours, displays more creative than last year, trees more spectacular than the next market, and gifts more distinctive than ever before. Children smile. The scent of fresh-baked biscuits wafts through the air. Passers-by pull on mittens and sip mulled wine.
The crisp air is warmed by music in the city's churches, concert halls and even in the markets themselves. Choirs sing. Folk groups step up to the stages. A dedicated "Office for Christmas Songs" is open to all comers, giving out complimentary song sheets with lyrics and tunes that visitors can use to follow along, or take home.
Locals and visitors alike flock to the ice crib which captures frozen depictions of Jesus and other Nativity figures in the Landhaushof. 2009 will mark the 13th year of this display, which must be painstakingly maintained when individual parts melt and lose their definition.
