Our next day trip was to visit Graz and then on to the thermal baths in the evening. Emma wasn’t feeling well so she didn’t join us which was a shame but it’s a good excuse to go back.
Graz was a really nice city, the buildings were beautiful, the people were friendly and we were never far from a Christmas market. We started our day in Graz with a coffee and warm pastry – the only way to kick-start a day when you are in Austria. We then explored the city with our cameras. As always we did lots of walking and managed to find one of the best views across the whole city.
I don’t have any photographs of the thermal baths apart from one over on Instagram – you’ll have to search back a bit to find it. I’d never been to a thermal spa before and I can tell you it’s really quite a special experience. We went in the evening which meant the air was even colder for when we skipped from one pool to another. It also meany that the sky was full of stars and it was all very relaxing, espeically when it started snowing. There was also a ‘village of saunas’ and in Austria people go into the sauna naked! Im not really into being naked so when someone told us we had to remove our towel I just moved on into another one or into the steam room. We went to the Quellen Hotel & Spa, if you are in Austria then you must go.
Have any of you ever been to a thermal spa ? Can you recommend any good ones?
It was quite late when we started to travel back to the hotel, we had a two hour drive which would have been fine but it was snowing heavily. It snowed and snowed, we couldn’t see the markings on the road it was getting that thick. You must keep in mind that we were travelling ’round the mountains so not only was it dark but it was pitch black due to being surrounded by the beautiful (by day) mountains. So we were on a long journey back to the hotel in lots of snow and to be honest, it was quite scary. We were one of the few cars on the road and we didn’t have chains on our wheels. It got to the point where we thought we may have to stop somewhere and sleep in the car, but we kept going even though visibility was very hard. I am glad to tell you we got back safe and sound thanks to our driver Richard but I have one more snow adventure to tell you of and that was even more scary than this one.
xx