My Fun Day Trip to Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein is a tiny European country that’s squeezed in between two much larger countries, Switzerland and Austria in central Europe. I wrote all about it in my recent article Introduction to Liechtenstein

Background on my trip to Liechtenstein

First off, as I generally mention whenever I talk about visiting Europe, anybody who is not a citizen or resident of an EU country can only explore EU for 90 days at a time. Then they must leave for 90 days before returning for another three-month visit.

This makes it quite difficult and annoying to explore Europe for anyone like me who wants to travel thoroughly around all the European countries. But that’s how it is. No way around it.

So now that I’m attempting to visit all the European countries, my general plan of attack is to explore three countries during each 90-day visit. Last year I explored Belgium, Holland and Germany. This year I hoped to visit Switzerland, northern Italy and Liechtenstein.

Unfortunately, I’m not entirely free to choose exactly where I go in each country and how long I stay in any given destination since I have various hotel review assignments to complete (destination dependent) and I’m usually pet sitting (also destination dependent)…and, of course, for the obvious reason that Europe is so darn expensive. I need to cut out accommodation costs by pet sitting and/or doing work exchange gigs and those require acceptance by the hosts in their homes.

Last year, as it turned out, I spent most of my 90-day visit in Holland, mostly in/around Amsterdam, because I had to visit 50 hotels in that city. I also spent nearly one month in Belgium, visiting three fantastic cities where I had hotel reviews.

I really, really wanted to visit Luxembourg, especially since it borders Belgium. That was closest I’d get to Luxembourg during my stretched out explorations of Europe.

Unfortunately, in the end, I never did get there. Darn it! I searched high and low for pet sits in Luxembourg. There were a handful from time to time, but none of them fit my schedule. In addition, I didn’t have any hotels to review there, so I’d get no income by going.

I really should have gone anyhow! I should have just taken 7-10 days to head down from Brussels to explore Luxembourg before moving on to Holland. But I didn’t and I regret it. Lesson learned.

So this year when I headed to Switzerland, I was determined, if at all possible, to go visit Liechtenstein. Especially since this was the closest I was bound to get.

I was in a cannily similar position as last year. I continued searching for pet sits in Liechtenstein, but during the three or four months I searched I think I only saw one position advertised. Likewise, I didn’t have any hotel assignments there.

Since Liechtenstein is one of the most expensive countries in the world, I wasn’t sure how I was going to visit without any work nor any ‘free’ accommodation via pet sitting there.

Making a day trip plan to Liechtenstein

After arriving in Switzerland and gradually getting accustomed to searching for train routes between various destinations, I somehow discovered that fast daily trains run from Zurich, Switzerland over to Liechtenstein in just 1.5 hours! It’s the same for return journeys.

Right then and there I decided I would make a day trip to Liechtenstein from Zurich. Luckily for me, I had a one-month cat sit in Zurich, which would give me plenty of time to visit Liechtenstein.

I figured out the best day for me to go, bought my train tickets to & from, and just waited for my big adventure day in early May to roll around.

Taking the train from Zurich to Liechtenstein

Finally, my big day arrived. I had tickets on my phone and meals in my day pack, all ready to go. I caught the tram down to massive Zurich train station and found my train among the 42 (!) train platforms.

There, I was astounded to discover that my train was actually a very long-distance train to Budapest, Hungary which also passed through Vienna, Austria en route. I had absolutely no idea I’d be taking such a train. I thought I was taking one of Switzerland’s many national intercity trains.

As it turned out, my stop just outside Vaduz, Liechtenstein was the very first stop on a cross-continent, multi-country train to Hungary! I was told it took 10 hours from Zurich to Budapest. My portion of the ride was just one hour.

That mere one hour trip proved to be even more spectacular than I’d imagined. For the first half hour we zipped along the southern shores of long & narrow Lake Zurich. We started by passing through Zurich’s extended lakeside suburbs then gradually ended up in quite rural, undeveloped lakeside areas with walking trails, small parks and scattered houses.

I was quite surprised that just 20 minutes from Zurich one could reach such natural lakeside settings. Very handy for Zurich residents.

After finally leaving the far eastern end of the lake, we passed through farmland briefly, before reaching another, much smaller long & narrow lake. Lake Walensee. Now that lake was jaw-dropping spectacular! We zoomed along its flat southern shores while gazing at a long jagged mountain range that plunged vertically into the northern lakeside for its entire length.

Here and there, a tiny flat inlet at the base of the soaring mountains was home to a tiny village with a few historic Swiss chalet homes. The entire lake, with its dramatic mountain range and idyllic Swiss villages was simply jaw-dropping. In fact, I still think it’s the most beautiful lake I saw in all of Switzerland. On the train I even declared, “Wow! I want to live here!”

Eventually we left the lake and pressed on eastward with the stunning mountain range extending towards Liechtenstein. Finally, we curved around the mountains and northward along the border to a small train station called B. That was my jumping off point. I waved goodbye to the long train to Budapest.

From there I had to catch a bus over the border into Liechtenstein and then another bus to head a few kms northward into Vaduz, the capital. Unfortunately for me, because my train arrived a bit late and missed the local bus connections, the bus portion of my journey took an entire hour when it should have taken 15 minutes. Luckily, I could at least gaze at more jagged mountain peaks while waiting for buses. An hour later I finally arrived in tiny Vaduz.

Vaduz, Liechtenstein

architecture, museums, sculptures and a Princely castle

As usual, I had already researched Vaduz. I knew pretty much how it looked and what to see & do there. It’s a small town-size city set in the flat broad valley of the Rhine River and butted up against a steep hillside. The Rhine forms the border between Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

When I say that Vaduz is small, that’s actually quite an understatement. In fact, Vaduz is the third smallest capital city in the world, after Vatican City and San Marino (capital of the micro-state of the same name).

Vaduz has a population of less than 6000 people. Heck, that’s waaayyy smaller than the tiny towns I grew up in over in western Pennsylvania and is also clearly smaller than most tiny towns in the USA.

Vaduz has a less dramatic or scenic location than I’d expected since the Rhine River valley is so very wide. Downtown Vaduz is basically just small and flat. But it does have some spectacular mountain scenery due to that rugged mountain range over in Switzerland that I mentioned earlier. The dramatic mountains are set on the far side of the valley with clear views from town.

Vaduz was also less beautiful than I expected, in terms of architecture. I was hoping for lots of elaborate historic architecture, like most Swiss cities. Sadly, Vaduz is mostly filled with nondescript modern buildings. At least there are several beautiful historic houses and buildings scattered about, along with a lovely Medieval stone church.

And, to my surprise, there’s some amazingly great modern architecture scattered about too. All in all, Vaduz is a mash of many different types of architecture, from fancy historic homes to ultra-contemporary buildings.

The main things to see & do in Vaduz include several museums, art galleries, sculptures, the church and other historic buildings, upscale shops & restaurants and, most popular of all, Vaduz Castle.

Museums are all situated right in town and include the National Museum of History, Modern Art Museum, Philatelic Museum. They’re all fairly expensive, so I didn’t visit any of them.

But I did get to enjoy a very impressive collection of huge metal sculptures, which are placed around the main pedestrian walkway downtown. Many of these sculptures were created by world-renowned artists from all over the globe. There are so many sculptures that the information center has a brochure listing all the sculptures, with a map and descriptions for visitors to make a self walking tour.

The most impressive sculpture to me was a huge, over-sized bronze of a reclining plus-size woman by famed Brazilian sculptor, Botero (mainly because I knew his sculptures and had seen them in Medellin & Sao Paulo, Brazil). How surprising to find a massive Botero sculpture in tiny little Liechtenstein!

The reason there’s so many sculptures, museums and other art in Vaduz is that the ruling family is a huge patron of the arts. In fact, it’s said that Liechtenstein’s Princely family has one of the largest, most important art collections in the world.

I wandered around downtown, visited the cute Medieval church, admired historic homes and ate my packed lunch while gazing at Swiss mountains across the valley. And then I headed up to renowned Vaduz Castle.

Vaduz Castle

Vaduz Castle is the city’s most famous and popular attraction. It sits way up on the steep hillside, almost directly above town. Visitors can walk up to the castle in about 20 minutes, either by a winding road or a walking path, both of which zig zag up the mountainside. Otherwise, visitors can catch a taxi.

Once you reach the top, the beige-stone Medieval castle is quite a striking sight. It dates way back to the 1200s, making it about 800 years old. It’s been owned by Liechtenstein’s princely family since 1712.

One unusual aspect of Liechtenstein’s royal family is that they actually live in that castle! Therefore, visitors cannot enter the castle, nor its grounds. Tourists can just admire it from outside. The royal family has officially lived there since 1938 and the castle is currently occupied by the 13^th generation.

Another oddity about Liechtenstein’s royal family is that it is a Princely Monarch. The country is ruled by a prince, not a king or queen. Like all royally-led countries, the rule is passed down from father to son.

Near the castle there are vast rolling meadows and a hillside forest with walking trails. I walked through the forest, sat a while enjoying the views, then headed back to town.

I had enough time to eat my packed dinner then go catch a bus to the train station and return to Zurich. Once again, I got to enjoy the stunning mountains rimming little Lake Walensee, followed by the long ride around Lake Zurich into the city center.

All in all, it was a wonderful day trip to Liechtenstein!

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You might also enjoy:

My Introduction to Liechtenstein

6 Crazy Facts about Switzerland

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