About this place
The Uhrturm has watched over Graz since the thirteenth century, taking its present form around 1560 with clock faces more than five metres across and the unusual quirk of an oversized hour hand and a smaller minute hand, a design from the days when the city only needed to read the hour from a distance. When Napoleon's forces dismantled the Schlossberg fortress under the Treaty of Schoenbrunn in 1809, the citizens of Graz raised nearly three thousand florins to ransom the clock tower and the bell tower from the demolition, an act of civic devotion that preserved the symbol of the city. From this summit, the same hill whose tunnels sheltered tens of thousands during the Allied bombing of 1944 and 1945, you look out over an old town that was almost half destroyed and patiently rebuilt. The view gathers together everything this walk has traced: the squares of staged triumph, the streets of persecution, the seats of power and terror, and a city that has since declared itself a City of Human Rights.
Key facts
- 2988 florins — Raised by the citizens of Graz in 1809 to ransom the Uhrturm and Glockenturm from Napoleonic demolition
- 5 metres — Diameter of each of the tower's clock faces, among the largest in Austria
- 2001 year — Graz was declared a City of Human Rights, the first in Austria
📍 Schloßberg 6, 8010, Graz