Back in 1989, I went on a bus tour of Europe with my parents which totally changed my life forever. It was the trip that made me want to travel for the rest of my life. Europe is so vastly different from Florida, and I hadn't experienced much like it to that point in my life (I was 12 and had only been to Ireland prior to this). On that trip, we swung through Liechtenstein. So I have been to this microcountry, but the other three in my family hadn't been there yet. Naturally this means... summer of 2017 trip! We left after Todd got out of work on Friday so that we could have a full day in Vaduz on Saturday. The weather was NOT cooperative on our way down there.
Is it supposed to storm this evening? Because this looks sort of ominous.
Me: Um, WTF is going on ahead of us? (Of note: a tornado or microburst actually went through Vilseck and Sorghof so my thoughts here are not unwarranted).
Hangy downy things never make me happy. Also for the record, I did not take these pictures. I was driving. Todd took them.
Maybe we should pull over.
Just saying.
I'm not loving any of this.
As scary as the storms were along the A6, they actually because WAY worse on the A7. And by that I mean the rain because it was torrential and it became dark. You don't want to be on the autobahn during one those events.
Once we got to Liechtenstein, this was the route that we found ourselves facing. In the rain. And wind. And up a super steep mountain to Malbun. Good times!
Funniest thing. There's quite a few tunnels between here and Liechtenstein. Every time we went through one, we had this weird sense of calm. No pouring rain, no windshield wipers, not too much in the way of curves. Such peaceful tunnels!
We got breakfast at our hotel both mornings since there wasn't much around us in Malbun (except other hotels!) and Grant found a crusty bread roll that had a point on it that looked like a little tail. He declared it was his pet and kept it for the remainder of the trip.
Because we were staying up in Malbun, Liechtenstein, which is located at 5,249 feet and we were heading toward Vaduz, Liechtenstein, which is located at 1,492 feet, we did not want to ruin the brakes and transmission of George Jetta anymore than they already were or already will be. (I just got new brakes!) So we decided to take the bus down the mountain to the capital of Liechtenstein. This is the bus stop view!
It was probably for the best to take the bus because the views are just incredible as you come down from the mountains! Look at the Rhine!
Still so far up above the clouds on our way down to Vaduz.
When we got down to Vaduz, we decided to first take the little train that rides around the city. Vaduz is 6.7 square miles. It has a population of about 5500 people, making it smaller than the tiny town of Auerbach that we live in. In fact, the entire country of Liechtenstein is only slightly larger in population than Natick, MA! The little City Train was super cute. It lasts less than 45 minutes, but you literally go around the whole city. The first stop is the Red House. The Red House was originally built in the 1400s, but it's been renovated since and is now privately owned. They also have the prince's vineyards out front!
This squirrel followed the train for some time and the kids were dying laughing.
You get one get-off-the-train stop on the train ride, and it's at the Red House. This is because the views of Vaduz Castle are so spectacular from here!
Two cuties in the back of a little train.
At one point we crossed a small stream and went up. And I realized... are we driving on the levee? Yep. Vaduz is somewhat protected from the Rhine River through a series of levees on the west side of town.
The Cathedral of St. Florin was built in 1874, but didn't become a cathedral until 1997.
The Government Building of Liechtenstein.
The famous writer and poet Goethe stayed here in early June 1788. Poor Liechtenstein. No one famous is from there, so they get super excited about when famous people stayed there! This is actually the side of the Rathaus.
This is the front of the interesting Rathaus (Town Hall). In Liechtenstein, they speak German!
We ended the train tour and strolled through the city of Vaduz before we got some lunch.
Reclining woman, by Fernando Botero. She's just chilling in Vaduz, not a care in the world.
This is African King by Gunther Stilling. And my kids have chosen to pick the bronze statue's nose.
We had a little time before lunch so we decided to hit up the Postal Museum, which we heard was small, but really good. Liechtenstein is known for it's beautiful postage stamps!
Metal postal signs.
Todd and the kids checking out their really big selection of stamps.
Special delivery by bicycle. Hopefully they didn't have to make any deliveries by bicycle up in Malbun!
Science stamps! So cool!
Paraphernalia from an old post office.
Natalie and a mannequin wearing a postal uniform from 1910. I particularly liked the bicycle, especially the little stand that pops out in the front to sturdy the bike and the basket. This is a great little museum that you can see in probably 30 minutes. The best part? It's free! Liechtenstein isn't cheap, so take advantage of it!
THE funniest thing about Vaduz. It's Saturday around lunchtime and about half of the restaurants are closed. And it's August. I read somewhere recently that Liechtenstein is the LEAST visited country in all of Europe, so maybe this is why. Some of the restaurants we saw (like this one that had a cute little ski lift gondola table) said they were only open Monday through Friday! Huh!?!
Same restaurant uses cork in it's potted plants.
As we walked back toward the downtown area, we noticed a bunch of bicyclists riding through. You guys are brave! Tour de Liechtenstein!
We stopped for a little pizza lunch (because let's face it, there wasn't much open!) before decided we would hike up to Vaduz Castle. We already knew this, but the sign says, "No Visit" since you aren't able to actually go into the castle since the Prince and Princess actually live there!
The hike up the mountain was NOT EASY. But the views were beautiful!
So very pretty.
Grant was full speed ahead all the way up to the castle, which is about 120 meters up. This eastern part of Vaduz Castle was actually built in the 12th century, but the current royal family (the House of Liechtenstein) didn't take over until the early 1700s. You can see a difference in the color of the outside - the eastern, more darker part is older. The lighter block walls to the north are the newer sections.
This is as close as you can get. Please don't jump over the gate, guys!
No entrance! Nein!
Oh I kind of love their little wooden bridge!
A close up of the castle gardens. So very pretty!
Just to the left of the gate in the above photos is another gate to a separate part of the castle grounds. I hope Prince Hans-Adam II and Princess Marie know how amazing their views are!
One of the oldest parts of the castle - this section was built in the 12th century.
Weeks later, Grant and I were STILL talking about the cutest wiener dog in ALL of Liechtenstein, maybe even in all of Europe! We encountered this little cutie on our way DOWN the mountain.
I think Grant was a bit thrilled to be done with our massive hike. The hike itself is a little less than 1000 meters long (1km), and starts at 460 meters and finishes at 577 meters.
Time to head back to Malbun. We wanted to catch the 3 pm falcon show at our hotel and we timed it JUST right. But the bus we tried to take never showed up. We arrived 20 minutes before the bus was supposed to leave and it never arrived. Meh.
Summer in Europe is FULL of flower baskets on window sills or on balconies. It's one of my favorite things about Europe (and my least favorite things, as these flowers attract bees and flies - Bienen und Fliegen - and they are SUPER annoying).
We missed probably the first 10-15 minutes of the falcon show at our hotel, but we managed to catch most of it! They had some beautiful and well trained birds!
That's a long wing span. In fact, when he walked around with this one, it decided to stretch it's wings near me and whack me in the back of the head!
Natalie got picked out of the crowd to do a demonstration with one of the birds! The entire show was in German, so it was fun trying to make out what the guy was saying.
Can you see the bird flying here? Love that the lady in the wheelchair was all excited to play with the bird!
Awwww, so sweet!
This guy was hilarious. He was brought up to hold this big bird, and the host talked on and on and on and the guys arm was getting SO tired. He wound up trying to hold his arm up with his other arm. You could tell he was really struggling.
This bird was wearing a little hat! He gave a great demonstration about how he would get the hat on the bird without the bird actually freaking out.
Close up of the bird who wore a silly little hat.
After the falcon show, we took the kids down the street a bit to ride some little cars. I had to laugh because when I was 12, my brother and I were in the town of Seefeld, Austria (not close to here, but also still in the Alps and closer to Liechtenstein than our own house is) and we rode little cars like this! Of course, we were 12 and 10....
There was also a free trampoline! The only problem? Only one kid could jump at a time.
OK Grant, you go first and then I'll go second.
Goofball, the original in Malbun, Liechtenstein. We finished our little beer and car break and decided to head out to find a place to eat.
Hey look! We have these in the US! This is a floodplain management technique known as a trash screen. If it collects here, then you can clean it out before it heads downstream and clogs up other parts of the river.
We saw this cool van and decided THIS is what we are going to buy to travel around Europe when the kids are gone. (Gas? Expensive but you can sleep in the back!)
A little oxbow section of a stream coming down the side of the mountain in between the little hotels.
We stopped into the Hotel Walserhof for some dinner and we ordered the Prince's Pinot Noir. We even had a nice little (Irish?) band playing us some tunes!
Between the wine, other drinks and post dinner drinks... we made hats out of the kids placemats!
Hey, I wasn't the only adult drinking at the table.
A little background about this picture (and our after dinner drinks). We took a few random ones like this and then I decided I wanted to take my hair down and Todd kept snapping pictures. I can't even show you the pictures because I was making inappropriate hand gestures.
Bailey's in Liechtenstein. My purple rain jacket is making me look rather puffy. Or perhaps it was the excessive amount of food and alcohol we consumed at this dinner. (Price tag: 200 Euros. Don't expect a cheap time in Liechtenstein). But really, this was one of my favorite dinner experiences we have ever had in Europe, so this was worth it!
Crystal clear water coming down out of the mountains, not really too clouded by dirt and sediment. This will eventually make it's way to the Rhine.
We walked back to our hotel and all we could hear are BELLS! What? Well there were a bunch of cows on the side of the mountain!
Here's a little sample of how loud all of the cows were!
As we left Liechtenstein the next morning on our way up to Neuschwanstein, we passed by the Rheinbrücke Vaduz, and old wooden bridge that crosses the Rhine. It's currently just a pedestrian bridge as it was closed to cars in about 1975. But it was built in 1901 and it's 135 meters long.
Wooden bridges are so cool - it reminds me of the covered bridges in southeastern Indiana where my parents grew up.
Until next time, Liechtenstein!
