In the Céramique district, you still feel the industrial past, even though you’re standing in the newest and most modern part of the city. It’s the kind of place where you look up and keep looking, to take in the impressive architecture, even as the ground around you buzzes with culture and activity. Céramique arose in the early 1990s on the site of ‘Société Céramique,’ a ceramics factory that operated from 1850 to 1985, best known for its tableware. When the factory was offered for sale to the municipality in the late 1980s, the idea to redevelop the area as a quality residential and commercial district quickly emerged, and Government Architect Jo Coenen was engaged to develop a master plan. One of his fundamental premises was to bring something of a Mediterranean feel to this part of the city. To achieve this, he brought in a luminary architects from southern Europe for the design of the various residential and business complexes. The result is a total package of architectural high point after high point, like Mario Botta’s ‘La Fortezza,’ Alvaro Siza’s ‘Tower of Siza,’ and perhaps the crowning glory, Aldo Rossi’s Bonnefanten Museum. But despite all the forward-looking architecture, the connection to the past remains, in the street names, remnants of older buildings and tableware that turn up unexpectedly, and the exhibitions in the Bonnefanten Museum and Centre Céramique. Each and every one is a golden thread of history interwoven into the fabric of today.

City beach in the Mariborsko Jezero Regional Park. Catch a glimpse of the "sea". Take advantage of some sunny hours and spend the afternoon at Maribor’s leisure beach on the Accumulating lake Mariborsko jezero! Here you can catch your own piece of "sea," calm the frantic pace of modern life and recharge your batteries. Stop by the river, sit on the terrace, or drink a cold drink in a clearing beside the playground. In a pine forest, close to the water, a beautiful city beach also offers many recreational opportunities on and near the water.

The Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno stands as a historical testament, containing the remains of distinguished citizens such as De Andre' and Govi, as well as the tomb of Lady Constance Wilde, the wife of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. Its elegant galleries and chapels display hundreds of statues, making it a captivating open-air museum. The styles used by sculptors go from realism, neo-Gothic and neo-Renaissance to Art Nouveau and Symbolism.

A wall-tattoo on Herrengasse street? Sure! On the façade of the Herzoghof building in the centre of Graz, Greek and Roman Gods engage in a rendez-vous. The building was first painted as early as 1600. The Baroque painter Johann Mayer applied the ‘divine’ frescos in 1742, since which time it has been known as the ‘painted house’. If you take a moment to immerse yourself in the images, you enjoy an intense sense of submersion right there in the middle of the urban hustle and bustle.