After not leaving the country in over a month, our wanderlust brought us to Liechtenstein on Saturday afternoon. It took about an hour and a half to get there from Zurich by train and then bus. We decided to head for the capital, Vaduz (who knew Liechtenstein was big enough for more than one town?), since it contained a few interesting-sounding museums and such.
We arrived around 1 pm and headed straight to a restaurant that promised Liechtensteinese (is there a real adjective form of this word? Anyone? Anyone?) specialties, which turned out to be strikingly similar to Swiss food: meat, potatoes, sausage, cheese, spatzle, beer. Actually a lot of things about Liechtenstein are strikingly similar to Switzerland: the Swiss Franc is the official currency, High German is the official written language, and an incomprehensible dialect is what they actually speak. Plus it’s generally clean, safe, and orderly, at least from what we saw.
After lunch we wandered around town and checked out a couple souvenir shops (which sold as much Swiss stuff as Liechtensteinian stuff) before heading to the art museum. The guidebook promised a fabulous collection owned by the benevolent royal family, but the lady selling tickets practically begged us not to go in as she explained that the entire upstairs was closed since they were changing the exhibit and it really wasn’t worth our 8 francs. We then wandered towards the Landes Musesum, which featured an exhibit on Ötzi. We are big fans of Ötzi, but we learned all we need to know about him at a similar exhibit in Bolzano, Italy, two years ago. At least there were several outdoor sculptures throughout the town for us to enjoy.
So our attempts at museum visits were thwarted. No matter – we had already learned over lunch that the real fun in Liechtenstein lies not in its actuality, but rather in its concept. The tourist office had provided us with a fascinating little statistical booklet all about the country, which led us to some deep, profound thinking about what it would be like to be from such a teeny, tiny land. What would it be like to travel the world as a Liechtensteiner, introducing yourself as from a country that no one knew anything about? A country that made Switzerland look really big? A country where you knew every single citizen by his/her first name? We entertained these questions and more as we hopped on a bus and high-tailed it out of there. Conclusion: listen to the guidebooks when they all but scream at you that a particular country is not worth the trip.
Ah, but it’s worth visiting for the multi-colored passport stamp that you can get in your passport for a mere 1.50 euros from the tourist office in Vaduz.
Yes, we (along with our dog) also made the trek to Liechtenstein. Exciting place, isn’t it?
It’s one of those places that you go to just to say you’ve been there. You did have your passports stamped, didn’t you?
Of course visiting Lictenstein means that you have visited 50% of the doubly-landlocked nations on Earth.
Congratulations!
Litchtenstein is by far the easiest of these two nations for most people to visit, I hope to complete this list one day.
The other thing to do in Litchensteain is to buy stamps and mail postcards–which was the first thing I did upon arrival in Vaduz.
I’m totally going to start using “I’ve visited 50% of the doubly-landlocked nations on Earth” as part of my email signature.
Sadly, we didn’t send postcards or get our passports stamped. (I have a strict no-novelty-stamps policy when it comes to my passport, because I don’t want to have to deal with the American Embassy an extra time by filling up the pages too early. I know, I’m a total party pooper.)
Don’t worry, I’ve never gotten that stamp either 🙂
When we took the train to St Anton, Austria, it went (quickly) through Liechtenstein and I was bummed that we didn’t stop…at least now I know we didn’t miss anything.
Maybe I’m dense, but what’s the difference between being “doubly” land-locked and singularly land-locked?
ah yes wanderlusting! Oh man I so have the bug… It will always exist until I return to switz I’m sure…
You should try some of the thermal baths! In this area you will find many people going into switz from Liecht to go there.. I kept on laughing at all of the plates on the cars..
Doubly-landlocked means that not only is that country landlocked, but all of the countries touching that country are landlocked.
So, in Lichtenstein’s case, it is landlocked as well as Austria and Switzerland. Switzerland is not doubly-landlocked because Germany and France touch the ocean.