It was back in Dec 1998, when I take on a 2 weeks trip to Central Europe with my friend, where I will be covering Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Liechtenstein was not even in our plan when I arrived in Frankfurt on a cold winter morning. After a few days of traveling in Germany and Switzerland, we are starting to get sick of the train travel, especially for long journey between far away cities. The long journey from Zurich to Innsbruck make us planned for a short break, and from the map we found a tiny country name Liechtenstein, and it’s capitol Vaduz. Liechtenstein is a small tiny country situation along the border of Switzerland and Austria.
A needle shape country stretching from approximately 25 km from north to south, and around 6km from east to west. Vaduz, the capitol of Liechtenstein, is just a little town, with a population of about 5, 500 when I am there. I arrived at Buchs, situated at the Swiss border in the late morning, I can’t really remember the date, but it was a few days before Christmas, as I remember I spend my Christmas in the home of Mozart, Salzburg. From there I took a bus, just out the Buchs train station, to Vaduz. Frequency is good, about 3 buses an hours. I can’t remember the ticket price though. The trip from Buchs to Vaduz took about 15 minutes. Buchs is very close to the Swiss border, and before you realized, you are already in the territory of Liechtenstein. I am not aware of any sign that actually say I am already in Liechtenstein.
Liechtenstein is famous for its stamps collections, or to be more accurate, production. There is a Postage Stamp Museum in Vaduz, unless you like stamps, it don’t actually worth the money to go in. I feel so much of being cheated, as it is really small. The Vaduz Castle, located at the top of the hill, is a great sight. I am told it is occupied by the present Prince of Liechtenstein, and not open to public. But tourists are allow to go up the hill to have a better and closer look. Being in the cold winter during my trip, I gave up the idea, and prefer to view it from below. It look small, and in fact it is a small castle, not as grand as those in England and Germany. A very popular practice, according to the tourist office, is to have your passport stamped with the Liechtenstein stamp, and to send a post card home with the Liechtenstein. I don’t remember how much does it cost, all I remember is that it was expensive, but I did what I am told. Food is expensive, even when compared to Lucerne and Zurich; a simple meal cost us more than Sfr10. And communication doesn’t seems to be easy, most shops cannot speak English, and of course I can’t speak German. It was really interesting to get something across for a few minutes while I usually took just a few seconds. Everything seems so quiet when I am there, maybe the cold winter force everyone to stay at home, and maybe because it is not a tourism period of the year. But it does loosen up my mind a bit, after all the pack schedule to be met for my trips and the cities life. Vaduz is more like a small village then we know of in fairy tales, simple and sweet place to be in. From Vaduz, I took the bus back to Buchs, where I took the late afternoon train to Innsbruck, my first stop in Austria.
There might be nothing much in this small quiet and simple country and she might be unknown to most people. But if you happened to cross the Swiss-Austrian border, why not spend a day trip to Vaduz. After all, how many times do we have the chance to get back to the same spot in the world?