Steyr

I spontaneously decided on thursday to travel to Steyr that night. Steyr is a small-ish (40,000 inhabitants) in the province of Upper Austria. I read that it was really cute especially during christmas time, so i just went!

I arrived at night and went to the local youth hostel where I dropped off my stuff and then walked into town for some dinner. I went to a brewery which had good beer and i had a reallly good dinner of spinach palaschinken (basically a crepe with spinach inside) and cheese baked on top. yum.

I walked around the main square a bit which was really pretty at night.

There was a small christmas market similar to ours in graz, but with less handy crafts it seemed. The rathaus (town hall) was really beautiful and there was a really big christmas tree in the center of the sqare that cars drove around.

I went back to the hostel and got a good nights sleep and woke up early the next morning for an all day tour of the city. The hostel was kinda in the burbs and not in the town proper, but it was still a nice area.

The mayor and city wish me a merry christmas and happy new year!

Steyr is a special town because it is located where two large rivers meet.

There are some interesting frescos around town.

There are also many churches. First I visited Michaelkirche which was pretty (as most european churches tend to be).

I also went to the local castle (seems like everyone's got one!). Unlike other castles though, this one is not preserved as a castle inside, but rather houses many government offices (police, etc). I walked around the inner courtyard which had really beautiful walls and window designs.

Outside of the castle was the famous christkindl christmas market. There were cool play areas for kids and lots of stands with glühwein and other warm drinks and sweets.

Next to the market was the city park, which was not as big and pretty as our city park in graz, but was still really nice to walk through.

I decided to walk to Christkindl, a small city outside of Steyr proper, about at 30 minute walk.

I passed by a christmas tree farm on the way:

Although it is a small town, it is famous in Austria for a few reasons. Firstly, a man here prayed to a small wax figure of jesus for weeks and was cured of his epilepsy. People heard about this and started to come from all over to be healed by this figure which was inside the trunk of a tree. So many people came they had to build a church. The altar of this church is built around this tree trunk and you can still see the almost 300 year old wax figure there on the altar!

When I got to Christkindl St. Nikolaus came out of a small store and gave me candy! He followed me into the church where I heard him tell all of this to a man there who was from Thailand.

The Thai man was there visiting his business partner who was showing him around Steyr. We 3 went to the Christkindl Post Office together, which is the other reason Christkindl is so famous. Every year thousands of children send their wish lists to this post office so that the Christkind will receive them! In fact, when I was there there was a group of kids doing just that!

The businessmen invited me back to Steyr in their car ( a really nice jaguar!) Instead of walking I accepted and the austrian businessman took us to a monument of Josef Werndl, a man who he obviously really admired.

He was the first man in austria to start moving from slow front loading guns to movable parts and back loading guns. He also brought electricity to Steyr, which was the first european city to have street lights!!! He also showed us the oldest building in the city center.

After they went to work I walked around the city some more. I visited 2 more churches which were both really beautiful and also did some christmas shopping.

I went to the Stadtmuseum which had some random old stuff from the city (irons, pots, and a sword collection, and also a stuffed bird collection from some guy from steyr who died and his family donated the collection.)

They also had some cool figurines that were meant to decorate nativity scenes

, and also a nativity scene with a painting of Steyr in the background.

Although I didn't ride it, there was also a really old bus called an "oldtimer" that runs through the city during christmas time on the weekends and takes tourists to different christmas markets.

I stopped for a coffee and cake at a cafe nearby. I got the best seat in the house! a little alcove that looked over the rivers converging.

On the way home to Graz friday evening it snowed at the trainstation I was waiting at. It is getting cold here! about 35 degrees. Be ready family!! I hear it gets colder in january.

Yesterday was St.Nikolaus tag/Krampus tag where Krampus' (more furry less scary than perchten i was mentioning in my previous post) go around the city and hit people with their sticks. this didn't really occur in graz, as it is mostly practiced in smaller villages. The bakeries did have Krampus bread though! So cute! They even have little sticks that they beat people with!