Der Kleine Elefant

In a corner of Neue-Welt-Gasse street in Graz stands an old building with a small sculpture of an elephant in its niche, an oft-overlooked detail in the Franciscan quarter. It’s a memento from an inn called Der kleine Elefant (“The Little Elephant”) that existed on the site around 1850, but there is more to it than that.

In October 1629, an elephant came to Graz for the first time—not by itself, of course, but accompanied by a circus that had previously made Amsterdam and Nuremberg go wild. An inn on Südtiroler Platz accommodated the showmen, and was later renamed Zum schwarzen Elephant (“The Black Elephant”) in memory of the event.

The business grew bigger over the years, and the inn became a “Grand Hotel L’Elefant” generations later. The owner also opened another location on Neue-Welt-Gasse: the inn called Der kleine Elefant with a small elephant sculpture in its niche. Today, neither of the businesses exist anymore, but the kleine Elefant is still there, watching the comings and goings of Graz.