Europe Adventure Part 2: Liechtenstein

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March 19-21st


Well the next part of our adventure brought me to Liechtenstein. No not many people know where that is let alone visit there but I actually chose this part of the trip, though I have no idea why.

To begin, in case I havent told you this already, Liechtenstein is the 6th smallest country and the world's largest producers of dentures. Random yes, but I have been tellign everyone I know because I find it interesting that these are the fun facts listed in the guide book.

Anyway on our first day there Andrea and I walked though the entire town and finally found a grocery store. Man this country is not cheap! Anyway on our way back to the hostel I realized that my nose ring had fallen out and so we went in search of a store that might possibly sell them. Well turns out even in Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, didnt really sell any earrings, so we ended up going to Buchs, Switzerland to do some shopping. I mean the bus ride there wasnt very long at all, maybe 20 minutes from Vaduz, but it still feels weird to say we went to another country just to shop. After awhile we finnaly found a store with jewelery but by this time Andrea and I were starving so we thought it woudl be semi cheap to eat if we went to McDonalds. At home I pretty much flat out refused to eat McDonalds, unless it was their ice cream. But once I start these long holiday breaks McDonalds suddenly becomes super appealing. Andrea and I each got one of those meal deal things and guess how much it cost in American dollars... almost$13!!!! Hearing that amount was kind of a shocker but we firgured that we hadnt had a real meal in a couple of days so it was ok to splurge.

Our second day in Liechtenstein was quite an adventure. That was the day of our big hike and I am not joking when I say big. We started in Schaan and began walking up some trails that led us up the Swiss Alps. See our plan was to hike through the mountains up to the Austrain border. However, after about 3 hours of hiking the path we had been taking was getting very slick due to all the snow. So we turned aroung but we werent dismayed because we realized that we could still get to the border just on the western side of liechtenstein instead of the northern part. So our goal was to make it to this point where you could see Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein. Off we went to our new destination, and I forgot to mention that by this time Andrea and I had each acquired two large walking sticks and then here we were walking through town with giant sticks. We finally found signs pointing us in the right direction but the weird this about this path was that it led us right past a llama farm and then we had to climb up an over this thing so we wouldnt hit the eletric fence.

From here it was kind of a crazy adventure. The path led us along a cliff, which is one thing, but then it was also slippery so we had it be careful if we wanted to make it to Amsterdam in time. After climbing down the side of a mountain for about 45 minutes we had made it to Nendlen, which meant we still had at least 2 hours to go. After about another hour we decided we needed food and stopped in this tiny town called Mauren. We ended up finding this quaint little bakery and before going in Andrea and I had been discussing about how we must look like lunatics in our outfits and giant sticks, but I guess we must have looked semi-normal because people kept trying to hold conversations with us in German.

From Mauren I felt as though we were never going to reach our destination. We finally made it to Schellenburg, which I remembered being near our point. But I swear to get anywhere in this country its up an incline. I made Andrea take a break at one point because I thought my legs might just fall off. On our way we passed several farms which seemed odd because some were right in town. We finally made it to the spot where you can have an amazing view of all three countries but somehow this didnt feel like we ahd made it to the border. We walked a little further down when all of a sudden we saw tow different flags. Holy Cow! We actually made it to Austria!!! As soon as we got under those flags we threw our stickes down and hugged in joy that we had finally made it. Yeah so maybe we had spent most of the day walking through Liechtenstein (6.5 hours) but heck it felt good to have reached our destination and to be able to say that we walked to another country.

Once we finally made it back to our hostel we were dog tired. I mean we showered and were asleep by 8:30.


Well those few days were fun. We had to catch a night train from Basel to Amsterdam so we were going to spend the afternoon in Basel. However, right before we got there we decided we didnt want to and since Andrea has never been to Germany we decided to take a day trip to Freiburg. It was Good Friday so most things were closed but we were able to look at the Cathedral for a little while and we stopped and had some very tasty schnitzel.

Well so that is the first part of break an now I am in Amsterdam where I will be meeting up with Katie and this is where break will become semi-chaotic with all the things we have planned.


Happy Easter to All!!!!!!!

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