Advertisement
Published: February 5th 2023
Dear All
Greetings! This is my final entry on my two mini trips taken over the Christmas holidays, and it will write up about my lovely little time in lovely little Liechtenstein! As mentioned, my aim this winter is to cover my three remaining micro-states of Europe, and thus whilst in Austria, I hopped over the little border from Feldkirch in the very west of Austria to spend two lovely days in the tiny principality of Liechtenstein.
I didn't expect it to be as big as it was if I'm honest, as after recently visiting really tiny Monaco at just under a square mile in size, Liechtenstein is actually quite a bit bigger in comparison at 61 square miles. When I told my Air BnB hostess there that I was planning to visit all three major sights in the country in one day, she was surprised and thought it would be a bit much - it turned out to be fine in fact, although distances between places were a bit bigger than I expected, and it took around an hour to traverse the country by bus from north to south, and just less than an hour from west to
east.
Interesting fact though, that despite their differences in size, both Monaco and Liechtenstein each have populations of just under 40,000 people - so you can imagine, there is much more open space in the latter than the former. In fact, I was quite surprised to see how much farmland there was in Liechtenstein, as well as half the country being made up of vertiginous Alpine mountains and thus housing almost no-one there. There were certainly places in Liechtenstein where you could find some alone-time, not so in Monaco. They are also both principalities, each governed by a Prince who is also head of state of the constitutional monarchy which they both are. While Monaco has the very famous Prince Albert and his wife Princess Charlene, of perhaps the world's second most famous Royal Family, Liechtenstein has the rather unknown Prince Hans-Adam II (quite a cool name!), whose wife who was actually called Countess Marie Kinsky as well as Princess of Liechtenstein, recently passed away in 2021. Prince Hans-Adam II, at 77 years old, shares ruling tenure with his son, Prince Alois who took over regency, and thus while the Head of State is the former, the latter is
Alpine Scenery
Malbun, LiechtensteinHead of Government. All a bit complicated really, but it does seem a good idea for the younger prince to make the important decisions here.
The Royal Family belongs to the House of Liechtenstein, originating near Vienna in Austria in the 12th century. It purchased the land of Liechtenstein in 1699 and 1712 within the Holy Roman Empire, and in 1719 Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI elevated the land to the level of principality for the House of Liechtenstein, after which the country was named, and they have ruled there ever since. Upon purchasing the land, the House also acquired Vaduz Castle, which was restored to liveable conditions in the early 20th century, and has been home to the Royal Family since 1938.
I find all of these statistics and its history really fascinating, and it seems quite unusual to see that a country such as Liechtenstein can exist today - I imagined such a country to exist in Grimm's fairy tales from years ago, where each mountain and valley would have its own fairy tale castle and kings and princes, marrying into the royal families of neighbouring principalities and kingdoms, just in the next valley or past
the nearby mountain pass. Such a place does indeed still exist today, and I found my visit there fascinating, and the people some of the friendliest I have ever met in the world - everyone was willing to give me a greeting wherever I went, and I just loved their local greeting of "Hoi!". Wherever I went, people would say "hoi" and I would say "hoi" back, it felt like being on a pirate ship! They also speak German there, so I was able to continue to practise my German language skills in the country.
Thus, leaving Feldkirch on the Monday afternoon, I took the Liechtenstein bus number 11 which starts there in Austria on the country's north-eastern border, traverses the whole of the country from north to south via its capital "town" (not actually a city!) Vaduz, before terminating in Sargans in Switzerland beyond the country's south-western border. I would get off the bus shortly after it crossed into Liechtenstein though, through quite a conspicuous border in fact as Liechtenstein is not in the EU but is in a customs union with Switzerland, though no documents were checked or anything. My destination for the day was a small
village in the north of the little country called Mauren, whereupon arriving in the village's electronics shop I was to meet with my Air BnB hostess who took me upstairs in the building to her flat with two rooms which she rented out - one to me on Air BnB, the other to seemingly one of her friends from long ago from Peru who worked in Austria - quite an interesting arrangement I must admit! They were both lovely and very friendly - I tried to speak with the hostess in my smattering of German, and she tried to speak with me in her smattering of English, but with the Peruvian gentleman there in the middle he actually ended up translating between us using Spanish over a nice drink of sparkling wine which we had on my second night there - it was really quite a jumble of languages, and good fun!
I had still a couple of hours of daylight on my first day there upon arrival, so used it to hike up nearby Schellenberg Hill, the first piece of land bought by the House of Liechtenstein in 1699, and home to a cute little fortress at the
top called Obere Burg. Looking at a map of the country, it seemed quite close, but again distances were greater than they seemed there, and it ended up being a two-mile walk uphill which I wasn't expecting. There were amazing views to be had from the top though as the sun was setting, back into Feldkirch and Austria to the north-east, and down into the plain of Liechtenstein to the south and the towering snow-capped mountains beyond. It was a lovely place to watch the sun set! My original plan was to walk a further two miles to a supermarket in a nearby village called Eschen, then a mile again back to my accommodation, but since it was getting dark and there was not much street lighting up there, and since fortuitously I was near a minor bus route, I took a bus to the supermarket to stock up on my time there, and walked from there back to my accommodation. It was a great little introduction to the country!
For my second day in Liechtenstein I started early, after heeding the advice of my hostess and realising the country was indeed bigger than I had first thought. I
took a bus first all the way to the south-western tip of the country, through Vaduz its capital, and onto lovely little Balzers. This is a tiny village of just 5,000 people, but is home to a really adorable little castle, Schloss Gutenberg, certainly a fairy-tale one, which although not open to the public, the walk up to it was lovely and afforded grand views not only of the castle itself, but also of the whole plain surrounding. Schloss Gutenberg was built around 1200, and is situated on the top of a commanding rock pinnacle with sweeping 360 degree views all around. Unfortunately this day turned out to be a little drizzly, cloudy and foggy, so I couldn't see the Alpine mountains from there, but did see the plain of Liechtenstein stretch out below and westwards to the natural border the country has with Switzerland formed by the Rhine River - thus, Liechtenstein is bound by natural features on all sides - to the east and south by the Alps, and to the north and west by the Rhine. After stopping by at the lovely St Nicholas Parish Church nearby, I took a bus back into Vaduz where I changed
Liechtenstein
Beautiful Alpine Principality to a bus up into the Alpine east of the country, definitely my favourite part!
A first bus took me to the small village of Triesenberg overlooking the plain below, where I had 15 minutes to wait for another bus which would take me further up into the mountains and on to my destination of Malbun. As soon as the bus started winding up the mountainside however, we entered the cloud level and visibility was down to about ten metres or so. My accommodation hostess later showed me photos of the typical views over Vaduz and beyond from Triesenberg on a clear day, and I was certainly missing out on those. Never mind, it was still quite atmospheric being up in the clouds. The next bus came on time, and half-an-hour of climbing later, I arrived in Liechtenstein's ski resort village of Malbun.
Malbun is described as sitting in a grand circular valley of mountains on all sides, but none of this was visible upon arrival. I enjoyed a lovely pizza and beer for lunch at a local restaurant, before heading to the village's chair lift which would take me up even further into the mountains. At the
Liechtenstein
Beautiful Alpine Principality top, I planned to walk the two miles back down again. I really loved the chair lift ride, which continued to take me higher up into the clouds. At the top, it was just about above the cloud level, so every now and then you would catch glimpses of the magnificent Alpine scenery all around, and this really was quite spectacular - it would have been seriously impressive I think on a clear day. But this is when I became grateful for the kind of day it was, as whilst up there it was snowing! The snow had formed a layer about an inch thick on the path back down into Malbun again, and underneath this was pure ice. I think without the added layer of snow on the top, it would have been a very slippery, perhaps treacherous, walk back into town. As it was, it was still rather strenuous, and sometimes the snow was over a foot deep (!), and a little slippy, but I seriously enjoyed the winter wonderland landscape and walk up there, and loved the walk back into Malbun again.
Back in town, my aching legs carried me to a bus which took me
My Accommodation
Mauren, Liechtenstein back to Triesenberg. I could have stayed on the bus as it ended in my next stop for the day, Vaduz, but I noted in my short sojourn in Triesenberg earlier that there was a (downhill) hiking path from there to Vaduz Castle, which I definitely wanted to visit, and thought it much more preferable to walk down to the castle which sits a whopping 120 metres above Vaduz below, than walk up there! Although the two-mile walk felt long, I still enjoyed it, and although there was nothing to see but fog and thus no amazing views over Liechtenstein below, it was peaceful and I loved the spooky forest scenery with ten-metre visibility.
Nearly an hour later, Vaduz Castle came into view, and although understandably it is not possible to go inside, it was a sight to behold from the outside, reminding me again of the fairy-tale nature of this lovely little mountain principality. The walk down into Vaduz 120 metres below was very steep, and I thought I definitely made the right decision to walk downhill there for two miles, rather than walking uphill - it was tiring just walking down! The sun had set by the
time I arrived in Vaduz, but it was lovely to see the country's capital of just over 5000 people all lit up, particularly with Christmas lights. I walked the main pedestrian thoroughfare, Städtle, past the famous Art Museum, National Museum, Stamp Museum, Government Building, and onto Saint Florin's Cathedral. Liechtenstein is incidentally renowned internationally for its stamps, and these are apparently a must-buy for any visitor, being a novel country to receive a stamped postcard from. And of course, when in Rome, I thus purchased some souvenir stamps for myself from the Post Office attached to the Stamp Museum earlier in the day while awaiting a bus connection. It was quite noticeable from in town down there that the Prince in his Vaduz Castle directly above this street had a commanding view over the little people below, and his existence throughout the country felt omnipresent. The people I spoke to held a lot of respect for him though, and I pondered that it would be lovely, just lovely, for us in our own country to be able to have just cause and reason to hold our own government in similar respect and admiration. I await the day...
If I
Mauren Parish Church
Mauren, Liechtenstein had had just that little bit more energy, I would have walked from there a one-and-a-half mile round journey to the Rhine River to the west, crossing it to set foot briefly in Switzerland for a few moments, but both hikes had really taken it out of me and I was absolutely cream-crackered by then. I've already been to Switzerland three times now, so nothing great lost there, so I hopped on the next bus heading northwards, and alighted back in Mauren to spend a very relaxing evening in my lovely little accommodation there. My room had its own balcony, so I spent a bit of the evening, and other times as well, just gazing out over the lovely view of the plain below backed by the Liechtenstein mountains beyond when they were visible.
The next morning, I packed my bags, bade farewell to my very friendly hostess, and took the bus back to Feldkirch and into Austria again. My final night in Austria was recounted in my previous blog entry on this trip, so I will end this final entry on my mini-trips over Christmas here. I really enjoyed both of them, and found it fascinating to learn
more about two tiny countries, as well as more of neighbouring France and Austria.
I have one more mini-trip planned in February, to take in my final micro-state of Europe, San Marino, and a bit of Italy as well. I plan of course to write about my time there in due course. In the meantime, thanks very much for reading, and all the best for now!
Alex
Advertisement
Tot: 0.265s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 32; qc: 53; dbt: 0.2196s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
LLL.... a beautiful micro-state
We found those Alpine Mountains appealing. It was warmer when we were visiting. Wow, that sounds like a great chair lift ride to the top! The spooky forrest walk would have been right up my alley. Once again, you managed a great deal in a short time. Thanks for taking us along on this journey.