Chocolate’s of Zotter and the beautiful country castle of Riegersburg

Hi readers. Yey, the weather has taken a turn towards more summery temperatures and sunshine. This was perfect as last weekend we had another ESN trip and this time it was to the Zotter chocolate factory and to the Riegersburg castle. They are located about 50 kilometres east of Graz near the borders of Hungary and Slovenia. This was fun since we had Riegersburg on our to-do list and the fact that ESN was arranging a trip there and they threw in a tour of a chocolate factory on top of that, great right.

The Zotter chocolate factory was our first stop on the day. We didn’t know too much about the place, but we knew the chocolates are very popular around here. The place was wickedly awesome. I am not a great chocolate lover, but Anne is, and she was like a kid in a chocolate factory all day. Zotter is a company founded by a local man called Zotter. The tour started with a funny 20-minute video of the place and all the different passions and focuses of the company. Most useful part of the video was to see the owner since we could recognize him going around the place later in the tour. The tour was simple factory tour, but there was tasting stations all over the place from the roasted cocoa beans to all different iterations of chocolate before it is actually chocolate. Also, after a while the different chocolates started and there was so freaking many to taste. The chocolates were in melted liquid form as well as pieces of chocolate bars and there was even a hot chocolate drinking station with a few dozen different drinks. The rooms where most of the tasting was done were great. There was many different lines and stations to stack up on chocolates and many different places to sit down and enjoy them. The view was also great to the green hills and forests rolling into the distance. After the tour we got to buy some tasties and we did get a small bag full of sweets to take home. 

We got short intro video to the company and the products

Everyone got a audio guide

And a tasting spoon for all the tastied

Cocoa beans

First fountain was pure cocoa

Some of the machinery, but who is interested in that, really?

This is starting to look more like it

Excited to taste, but not for picture

Choco catwalk had dozens and dozens of different chocolates

Good view to sit down and taste the chocos...

Lovely view

And balance it with some fruits

Nougat station was nice with different nuts ets

My favorites were these "vinyl" chocolates that had a speaker next to them that you could listen to a certain song that would go along with the particular chocolate. I mainly got stuck listening to AC/DC at one of the stops

Drinking station with many different choco drinks

Spinning copper balls with fruits and nuts covered in chocolate

Shop was large as it needed to be

From the factory we continued to the Riegersburg castle. The castle looked great sitting on top of a hill surrounded by the other rolling green hills. The castle was more impressive from the outside. Inside it housed a few museums, but we only had time to visit one that dealt with the history of the castle. The castle was a major fortress in the middle ages against the Ottoman empire. After it disbanded the castle didn’t serve as a military base. Another major history fact was that near the castle there had been huge witch trial in the middle ages. Something like 100 people were prosecuted for witchcraft in one of the largest legal hearings in Europe. The castle had a few impressive rooms like a knight’s hall where they gathered to drink and feast, the room had a balcony outside that they called puke bridge where the knights would throw up when they drank too much. Inside the castle felt a little disappointing compared to Eggenberg which we just visited, but the outside of the castle and the views from the hill easily made up for that. After the tour of the castle we were treated to a bird show in one of the castle yards. The show displayed owls, falcons and eagles in flight exhibitions. I had never seen one and it was cool to see these big birds flying around and extremely close to the crowd. Only problem with the show was that it was in German and we probably missed out on some of the info.

A little peek of Riegersburg from the bus

Looking up at the hill

So much green and wine yeards

Good spot for a little posing

Something something witches are always redheads

Place sure had good views

Mannequins reenacting old timey festivities

Really cool wood doors and decorations

Heading little down hill for the bird show

Biird

Another bird

Same bird with neck out

Little buddy bird

Black bird

Bird number one coming to the trainer

Big nocturnal bird

Ok ok just one goofy picture

Riegersburg looking mighty fine

Little more posing

Waiting for the bus back to Graz

This was another successful and extremely fun day with the gang of ESN. Totally recommend both as a day trip. We even could have used a little more time in both of the places, but those little compromises are ok to get to go with the gang.

Randomizer post: Couple of museums Graz has to offer

Hello. Good day. Yes. Let’s start. This is a little call back post. In between our visit to Vienna and before our tour of Italy we had a couple of days in between where we visited two of the museums in Graz. The armoury museum and Volkskunde museum which probably translates to museum of the people or something. I’ll keep these rather short, but still I thought they were interesting enough to write a bit about, just didn’t have the time between the trips.

Graz’s armoury museum is one of the most marketed visiting points in the city and is situated right in the city centre. It was closed during winter so again the reason why it took us so long to get to. The armoury was not massive but still impressive four stores of old timey war gear. The impressiveness of the museum was not necessarily in the gear, but the shear volume of the items. I can’t remember but it was something like 20-30 thousand separate pieces of weapons or armour. Lots of it was same pieces of armour or some old timey firearms. The older firearms were up to 30 kilos, meant to be fired from certain holes in the castle walls. There were a few more detailed pieces like some plate armour and one full sized horse armour. A few swords had engravings and other details, in contrast some of the simplest items were pretty much just nails on a stick. My favourites were some of the long pistols and their details in the wood were absolutely beautiful. The armoury was a great experience and it did not take hours to get through and I definitely encourage people to visit it.

The shelves were filled with these heavy ass guns

Plenty of armor on display

They had few old canons as well

The sheer amount of weapons was impressive

Carrying a little Jesus on top of your heart when heading to battle

Long pistols were mainly for cavalry

Some where detailed

Some of the officers armours were also highly detailed

I loved the varity in the detailing of the pistols

Some of the pistols had a ball at the end

Looking at dat horse armor

Some detailings on the sword blades

Havin a good ol time with weapons and armors

Second museum we visited was the Volkskunde museum. This was also highly regarded on TripAdvisor and other traveling sites, so we decided to give it a visit. Basically, it is a look on the history of people living in Styria. This sounds interesting to a point but is the simple lives of farmers in the medieval ages that damn exciting. There were some nice parts to it like the over 100-year-old cottage that was moved into the building from the countryside. It reminded me a lot of my family’s summer home in Finland which has old parts from the times when a huge oven warmed the whole house and that turned to ceiling and walls black. Other than that, it was old boxes and clothes etc, not really my cup of tea in the long run. It was nice but there was probably just too much of it. One of my favourites was an old folk story or poem about growing old. 

 

Old cottage moved to the museum quarters

Some small chets at the Volkskunde

There was a large collection of ye olde clothing

literal deathcap to be put on a corpse

My favorite part of the museum, try saying it out loud

Mini organs

The Volkskunde also housed a church

It was fun seeing some of the museums in our home away from home. We’ve seen pretty much all the ones we want to see in the city. From these ones the armoury was clearly better, and Volkskunde was more “ok”. Still in Graz when you buy a ticket to a museum it allows you to get into all the other museums in town, so people who have more energy to walk through multiple museums in a day, then Volkskunde is also worth a quick walkthrough.