Over the last holiday weekend we wanted to get away for a few days. Our choices were a little limited as the weather was terrible all across southern Austria and Slovenia. But not deterred we settled on a spa weekend and a visit to Graz.
We drove the couple of hours and parked up at Terma Nova in Köflach where we knew very well and where the quality would meet our expectations. Arriving at 15:30 we took an afternoon pass and enjoyed the wonderful facilities until they closed. Giving us enough time to have a very late dinner and a beer in the van. We stayed in the car-park overnight and although it was around -6°C we had a comfortable and quiet night.
Waking the next morning to a dusting of fresh snow we drove to Graz for the day but stopping on the way at the art store. This was Leela’s paradise and when she spent an hour going through everything there. I enjoyed a coffee and relaxed in their quiet zone.
Leaving with some fresh paints we parked the van a few km’s from Graz and walked along the river to the centre where the Christmas preparations were in full swing with kids playgrounds, markets and mulled wine.
We took a walk through town and up to the clock tower for a lovely view over the rooftops. There was a lot of people up there including tour groups from italy and beyond. A little too chaotic for us but they were getting what they came for. Christmas market, warm glüewein and all on a frozen morning with a dusting of snow on the ground. An instagramers dream. We continued our walk up to the castle then back down to town and further up the river to the Sushi restaurant where we were very much looking forward to for many days.
We took an empty booth and began the complicated task of actually ordering our meal. They have an all you can eat menu which we wanted to tqke at a slightly large fee of €25 each. But the problem was that you could not just order with the waitress but had to download an app, scan some barcode, and do everything through your mobile phone. We were both quite against this situation but the waitress said that there was no other way of eating there. Strange days.
We were considering leaving as we couldn’t even get the phone to scan the barcode but she came back and took Leela’s phone to log into the App. I am sure that the restaurant now has all her private information, but at least we could eat finally.
Ordering on the phone was strange but the items we wanted did arrive quite quickly each time, still hot, and very tasty. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal and for two slim people who normally don’t eat very much we managed to get through a total of 37 different dishes which was quite an achievement.
Leaving the restaurant Leela was stopping me making her laugh as she was seriously worried that she would explode. But after the 5k walk back to the van she felt much better and we drove the 30 minutes back to the spa carpark and enjoyed another peaceful night.
We were up and having breakfast and ready for a full day in the spa early the next day. First we headed for the training pool and slotted ourselves in amongst the Ironman training much to their disgust.
Leela was accepted immediately by the men as she is very attractive and was in her full and eye catching training kit but they were not too happy with an old guy with grey hair wearing baggy board shorts cruising past them all lap after lap.
After a couple of km’s the sauna world was opening and we found ourselves a quiet spot and enjoyed the spa for the day especially the roof top sauna and jacuzzi which were especially nice in the minus temperatures. Reluctantly dragging ourselves away late afternoon we drove the couple of hours back home through the dense fog after a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.
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