As soon as I found out I would be heading to Switzerland for work back in January, I knew I wanted to get to Liechtenstein. While it’s not exactly a country I’d always dreamt of going to, the principality has an undeniable appeal. So when the time came to board the bright lime green bus to Vaduz, I was embarrassingly excited.
Getting to Liechtenstein seems a popular bragging right of many travellers – I found a great photo of Vaduz Castle on instragram with the caption: travel achievement Liechtenstein: unlocked – but if its top tourist draw is a castle that isn’t even open to the public, is the country worth getting so excited about?
Short answer? Yes.
Schloss Vaduz (Vaduz Castle)
My brief jaunt to Vaduz wasn’t exactly ideal, I’ll admit: I only had a few hours there and the modern art gallery, or Kunstmuseum (the only thing I was really keen to see in Vaduz), was closed for extensive refurbishment. And yet, I really enjoyed my time there. So what exactly was so appealing?
The novelty.
View over Vaduz
It feels a bit shallow to admit it, but for me, a lot of the appeal was down to the novelty of the country. Liechtenstein has less people than my home town. It is tiny. As the bright green bus headed down the main road, every two minutes we entered a new ‘town’ – even the biggest town in the country, Schaan, only has 5,000 people.
But something about its minute size makes it so interesting.
Even before I got to Liechtenstein, I could see it from the window of my train on the way to Sargans, across the river. It looked like any small Alpine town, but knowing it was actually (the majority of) an entire country made me feel like I was in a fairy tale of some-sort.
Similarly at the end of the day, I waited for the bright green bus in Vaduz and could clearly see the castle towering above the town. I felt like I was directly under the Prince’s gaze, who could’ve been in for all I know (I did get suspiciously good 3G connection near the castle…).
Such a shameless tourist.
But the good news is, this novelty seems to be embraced: the trail up to the castle is marked with interesting titbits about the history of the country and the tourist office will stamp your passport for 2 Swiss Francs.
But what is there to actually do?
To be honest, I’m really not the best judge of that. By the time I had got my passport stamped, climbed up to the castle and got my Liechtenstein-selfie, it was getting on for 5pm and stuff was starting to close. I did, however, have time to check out a very bizarre exhibit in the temporary art gallery while the Kunstmuseum was shut.
An intriguing art exhibit on Arctic tundra…
I do know that the country is great for hiking and biking for those that have more time.
But for me, my visit to Liechtenstein was shamelessly superficial: I wanted to go and visit the weird tiny country, see the castle, and tick it off my list. And it was definitely worth it.
I’m going to leave you with a quote from my guidebook which I think really sums up Liechtenstein’s fairy-tale appeal and travellers’ deep interest in the country:
‘If Liechtenstein didn’t exist, someone probably would’ve invented it.’
(I’m also going to leave you with my selfie).
Liechtenstein selfie
I’ve never considered going to Liechtenstein until I read a blog post that has convinced me to visit it should I find myself in Switzerland. After seeing your post however, I have an even more superficial reason to go: I want a goddamn stamp in my passport, haha! I never get stamps travelling within the EU 🙁
I LOVE passport stamps! I have a fair few now, after a bit of travelling in Eastern Europe. I also have three Russian visas and a Chinese one. I actually asked for a stamp in my passport on leaving Croatia a few days ago, and he stamped it for me! Worth asking next time?
I totally get it. I was stuck in the US for so many years, CRAVING Europe but not really being able to afford it time- or money-wise, that now I just love playing catch-up and checking things off my mind-list, even if those places/activities werent REALLY on the list in the first place and just kind of… happened. So – hooray for you! My Liechtenstein is going to be Luxembourg next year, I think. I am probably heading back to the same conference I attended this July in Brussels, but with my blogger friend Annie no longer expatting there, and having day-tripped to Amsterdam and Antwerp, I need a new easy-access destination for the weekend.
I managed to squeeze Luxembourg in this year too, but we only had a few hours there in the end (in the rain), so I hope you have a better and longer time than we did. Quite jealous you are off to Belgium, too. Have a great time!
LOL no I am not off to Belgium till next July at the soonest! It would be for the same event as this year. I added the weekend and visited Amsterdam and Antwerp after the work stuff was done. Thats why I would need something different next year, and Luxembourg seems close enough.