11 Days in Austria – Open Air Museum Stübing

In the last post, I told about our visit to Admont and the amazing Admont Library. After spending half a day in Admont we continued to a night stay at Leoben. And next morning, we drove to Open Air Museum Stübing (official site).

Map of the area:

Austrian Open Air Museum Stübing

We parked at free parking outside, bought tickets at the entrance shop and continued into the park.

The first building and the first region we visited:

Intro

A short introduction to Open Air Museum Stübing (from the official site):

The Austrian Open-Air museum Stuebing near Graz is one of the 10 major and central open-air museums in Europe. As the largest and only national open-air museum in Austria, it displays the formative historical architectural styles of the various federal provinces. In a trip through time right across Austria, the 98 historical farm buildings tell the exciting stories of construction, living, working and celebrating – in short, the life of the farming population of days gone by.

Walkthrough

Inside:

Beneath the roof, on the outside, we saw corn.

The buildings are divided into groups and each group represents some geographical area/region and period. And you can see different construction techniques. For example, take a look at the roof of this barn that is made out of tree bark:

Or this method of holding logs in place:

There are tree placeholders both at the top and the bottom of the logs.

Open air museum is located in a valley and there is water stream. The stream that flows from the mountains is used to power machinery. Here it is used to power sawmill:

Water activates wooden water wheel:

Grass on the roof reminds me Norway. It is quite common there.

Another region:

More modern interior:

Another water operated wooden wheel that moves a big hammer (on the left).

Besides the main trail (on the right), there is also a mountain trail (behind the trees on the left). Both of then meet at the end of the open-air museum.

Workshop:

Roof tiles:

Closed bottom floor and open (without walls) upper floor.Also, the roof is made of straw.

More modern building with the first stone floor and second wooden floor. Also, the decoration of the second floor is quite beautiful.

At the end of the open air museum, you can find a pond with several buildings around.

Could you believe that the second floor of this building served as a school?

After reaching the end, we returned back towards the center of the park. There is a restaurant there. And since we already spend about three hours in the museum, it was lunch time. I am usually skeptical about food at touristic spots, but the food there was quite good.

Summary

Overall, Open Air Museum Stübing is a nice place for a half/full day visit. Especially for people who love such attractions. The only downside of this open air museum compared to others is low activity. What do I mean by low activity? Here are several examples. In Norway, different craftsmen were working in dedicated buildings and created actual produce. And in Switzerland, there was a big middle ages market. In Stübing, there were no extras. Only the buildings. On the other hand, maybe we selected a bad day. Thus, if you have a flexible time schedule, check out the official site for festival/celebrations and visit accordingly.

That’s all for today and follow to see where we headed next.

Note: all posts from the trip to Austria can be found at 11 Days in Austria.

Stay Tuned!

Additional Resources

Here are several resources that I created to help travelers:

• Trip Planner with Attractions and Itineraries is the page that will help you create your perfect travel route.
• What is the Best Time to visit Israel? To answer this question, we will consider the weather, prices, holidays, festivals, and more.
• Information and Tips for Tourists to Israel will answer the most common questions tourists have about Israel (including safety, passports, weather, currency, tipping, electricity, and much more).
• Israel National Parks and Nature Reserves include a complete list, top ten, map, tickets (Israel Pass, Matmon, combo), and campsites.
• If you are looking for things to do, here are the pages for Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Sea Of Galilee, Akko (Acre), Eilat, Nazareth, Safed (Tzfat), and Makhtesh Ramon.