Liechtenstein |
In April 2019 while I was on a work trip to Europe with the last leg at
Zurich, I extended my stay and explored the world's 6th smallest nation,
Liechtenstein. One has to be here to conceptualize how small it is. With only 24km from
North to South, generally a 30 minutes bus journey had already taken me
from its south-western border with Switzerland to its north-eastern
border with Austria. The country bordered by the Rhein on the east primarily is an
Alpine valley with mountain range over 2,000m in altitude. Triesenberg |
The slope is too steep so after a hike up we need to follow a paved zigzag road to get down to village centre. |
Glad Ricky accompanied me to explore this unique Alpine region. |
Liechtenstein is quite a newly built country. Only when exploring its remote village we witness some defined style of buildings, Swiss-cottage buildings. |
The Triesenberg village centre. Mainly there is a bus stop, a shop, a restaurant, a church, a post office, a library and a few inns. |
Balzers This Balzers village has a beautiful medieval Gutenberg Castle. |
The castle is unoccupied. |
View of the Balzers village. The mountain ridge is the border with Switzerland. |
Lama? |
Cherry blossom season. Beautiful. |
Vaduz Vaduz is the capital of Liechtenstein. Yet, it is too small to be considered as a city nor a town. Village is the more appropriate label. We walked from one end to the other in 30 to 40 minutes.
|
Schloss Vaduz - Vaduz Castle, home to the royal family. |
The castle overlooks the whole Vaduz and the nation's parliament and administration are right under it. |
A 5 minutes walk on the pedestrian road one can see all the significant buildings of Liechtenstein. |
Here is the governmental administration building. The parliament is the triangular building just next to it. |
National Cathedral |
Famous for its princely vault hidden treasures from Nazi. |
Liechtensten info centre |
She told us some national history. Since the establishment of the principality in 1719, Liechtenstein princes had not claimed its territory. Not until the fall of Holy Roman Empire, |
the first member of the House of Liechtenstein set foot in his principality in 1818 while the next visit was until 1842. "Hey son, actually we own this piece of a country, lets rule it!" |
Liechtenstein is famous for its stamps. (Perhaps there is nothing else here...) |
Things are so expensive here and there is no signature Liechtenstein product. Postcard is thus my only souvenir. |
The postal museum also archived drawing by the royalties. |
The description are in German and simplified Chinese. |
Old Rhinebridge. The only border between Switzerland and Liechtenstein which marked the border. |
Technically I've been in and out of Liechtenstein many times, yet stayed only one night. Haha. |
Visited a house at the central village of Vaduz. |
The boys helped us to navigate, yet they don't understand English... |
|