Tag Archives: Liechtenstein

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Five Hours in Liechtenstein

Zürich is in the north of Switzerland, not all that far from the border with Austria. And between the two lies the Principality of Liechtenstein. With our rail passes, it is quite easy to make a day trip there — so that’s what we decided to do. (For Nick, this marks his penultimate stop on the tour of Small European Countries. Only San Marino left to go…) We began with a nice walk through the center of Zürich to the Hauptbahnhof to catch our train, which ran along the southeast edge of Lake Zürich for the start of the trip. Soon enough we were traveling down glacial valleys with mountains towering overhead on either side. The only tricky part of the trip was that we had to make several transfers, and were having trouble deciphering the meaning of the various schedules and indicators on our itinerary. Everything became easier when we realized that one of the “transfers” involved sitting on the same train as it changed numbers from one route to another!

On the way to the Hauptbahnhof
View of Lake Walen from the train window
View of Sargans Castle from the train window

After one more transfer and a bus ride, we finally made it to Vaduz, capital of Liechtenstein. Vaduz Castle sits on a height above the city, home to the royal family and off-limits to visitors. A scale model stands next to the tourist office, and for those curious about the place they offer a VR tour (which we did not take). Also in Vaduz is an excellent Postal Museum, where along with various pieces of postal memorabilia they keep a collection of all the commemorative stamps the country has ever issued. There are quite a lot of them, since issuing high-quality stamps that are snapped up by collectors is a source of revenue for the country. The museum itself is free, but sending a postcard from it costs around $5 for the card and stamp together.

Slide-out panels house stamps organized by theme

Above the postal museum was a small art gallery that contained just a single work of art: a massive satellite-like structure made of wood and glue. It contained multimedia elements that interacted with visitors as they explored the piece.

After the museum and an outdoor lunch right in the figurative shadow of the castle, we decided to take a walk up the hillside to see it as close as possible. A network of hiking paths (Wanderwege) crisscrosses the country, and our route took us along one.

View of the castle from our lunch spot
A signpost at the start of our walk
The Wanderweg
Outside Vaduz Castle. While we were there, another couple wandered into forbidden territory and were chased away by a loud voice announcing that they were trespassing and had been caught on camera.
Best view of the castle from up close, with the Alps in the background.

From the castle, we continued further on the Wanderweg towards some viewpoints shown on our map. There were castle ruins marked a bit farther along, but alas we didn’t have the time to visit them. Maybe on our next trip…

The first viewpoint, cantilevered out from the edge of the slope.
View from the second viewpoint – turns out the “view” was of the forest – 300 years of Liechtenstein tree growth, to be precise. The spot was conveniently marked with a reclining wooden bench, so we put our feet up to fully appreciate the view!
One of the sights of Vaduz is the Rote House, built in 1338.
The Rote House up close. It’s also a residence and only visitable from the outside.
Purple lilacs on the way to catch the bus
Church in Schaan (north of Vaduz). We had a few minutes to poke around before hopping on the train back to Switzerland.
Our dinner spot back in Zürich, recommended by Eszter. The building was built in 1487 for use as an armory, and is now a restaurant with weapon-themed decoration.
This seemed like an appropriate time to order sausage!
Pretty skies over Lake Zürich in the evening. Seemingly the whole city was out for a stroll on the lakefront. We can understand why…