Oh my god, what is that? Are Aliens attacking the southern Austrian city of Graz?? Well...no, not exactly. This UFO-y building is the Kunsthaus Graz. A center for modern art in Austria. And yes, everyone is aware that it looks like an Alien spaceship, it was even dubbed "the friendly alien" by its designers.
Graz was the European capital of culture for the year 2003, and they built a lot of weird stuff for it. It is easy to see why they chose a place like Graz though, as the city is adventerous to put a big blob of a building in its historic downtown. Artist there don't seem to mind taking chances. Such as this stained glass window in a local church:
On first glance it may seem like any other church window depicting the passion of Christ, but this one is a little different. See if you can figure out why. Go ahead. I'll just wait here...
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See it yet? Well, if you look to the right of Jesus' shoulder, there are two very (in)famous tormentors. This window shows Hitler and Mussolini watching Jesus get whipped! As you can imagine it created quite a stir on its debut, but it remains today.
The last cool thing we saw in Graz was the armory, supposedly the biggest medieval weaponry! Sadly they won't let you take pictures, but let me assure you it was intense. There were enough weapons and armor to fit an army of 5,000 men. Luckily with the wonders of the internet I have tracked down an informative video about the armory for you all to enjoy:
I do beleive Rick Steves showed this stained class on one of his shows. Its a shame the armory isn't more touristy...a wooden picture with the face cut out so you and Hailey could take a picture in medieval garb with some of the weapons in hand that would be cool!
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