Arnold Schwarzenegger Museum!

I think everyone can agree that Austria’s greatest gift to the world is the fact that it’s the birthplace of the greatest movie star of all time, Arnold Schwarzenegger.  They’ve converted his childhood home into a museum; as soon as I found this out, I knew a stop in Austria was a must.

(Yeah that’s right, literally the only reason I’m visiting Austria is to see the Arnold Schwarzenegger museum.  I am, however, going to go to Vienna while I’m here and see all the usual touristy stuff — I’m a weirdo, but I’m not that much of a weirdo.)

I’m staying in Graz, but the museum is actually in Thal, a small village that’s close enough that you can get there by city bus.  It actually requires two different buses — and then you finally get there and you’re kind of in the middle of nowhere and you’re wondering if you’re in the right place.  Then you see this and you realize that yeah, it’s definitely the right place.

So you walk a bit, and when you finally get to the house, you absolutely can’t miss it.  There’s this:

Not to mention a big statue of Arnie flexing in front of the house.

The “museum” (it’s really just a few rooms that you can see in about 15 minutes) is small and kind of underwhelming, but as an Arnie fan, it’s still absolutely worth a visit.  There’s something special about being in Schwarzenegger’s actual childhood home.

You can see the bed he slept in.

Some of his first bodybuilding equipment.

Props and costumes from his movies.

Not to mention a painting that I absolutely need to hang up in my house.

You can probably give the museum a pass if you’re not an Arnold Schwarzenegger superfan, but then aren’t we all Arnold Schwarzenegger superfans?