Liechtenstein. A double landlocked Alpine principality sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland. And I didn’t know much more about it before I went.
Now one of the problems with Liechtenstein and the likely reason it receives so few visitors (it’s the second least visited country in Europe after Moldova), is it’s like Hull, in that you don’t pass through it to get to anywhere else. Liechtenstein is so small trains just go round it rather than through it. So, like Hull, you have to go to the effort of making a special journey if you want to see it. So I did. Liechtenstein, that is. Although as it’s so close to where I live, I’ve also been to Hull. Several times. Deliberately. Hull is worth the effort. But what about Liechtenstein?
I’ll be honest, Liechtenstein isn’t somewhere I’m likely to visit again and again. Possibly not even one more time, in fact. But it was worth making the special journey to visit although I had no choice but to go to Vaduz on a Monday, which isn’t the ideal day to visit. In England, our museums are open just about every day, but in most countries on the Continent many of the museums close on a Monday and this is also true in Liechtenstein. The Postage Stamp Museum was open. And the Treasury. Had I been in Vaduz on a day when mainland Europe wasn’t shut, I could have spent longer in the city, as I would have liked to have visited the Fine Arts Museum and National Museum, but on Monday they were both closed. Maybe you’re thinking I should have gone to Vaduz on a different day, but you have to be somewhere on a Monday!
I spent 2 hours on a train to the Swiss border and after Zurich, the Alpine lake scenery on the way to Sargans was beautiful. It was winter, it was snowing, the lakes were grey rather than blue, but I loved the mountain scenery. After disembarking the train in Sargans, it was then a 20 minute bus ride to Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein.
Liechtenstein is very sleepy. And that includes Vaduz. Although it’s the country’s capital and it’s called a city, in a tiny country with a small population, the capital isn’t going to be very big.
Somewhere in Vaduz that is nearly always open, including on Mondays, is the Hofkellerei des Fürsten von Liechtenstein, the Prince of Liechtenstein’s Winery, home to the Herawingert vineyards. It’s open from 8 o’clock in the morning and it is recommended to taste wine as early as possible when your taste buds are at their best. So on arrival in Vaduz at just after 10am, I walked to the winery.
Yes, Liechtenstein produces wine. Austrian wine is reasonably well known in England now. The Swiss production is so small they keep virtually all of it for themselves and export very little. I have tasted Swiss wine, but only in Switzerland. So if Swiss wine is difficult to find overseas, wine from Liechtenstein is going to be almost impossible to obtain outside of the principality. So this was my chance to try wine from Liechtenstein.
I did a wine tasting in the Prince’s cellar by special invitation from the prince. Part of that sentence may not be true. Seriously, it was Prince Hans-Adam II’s cellar, but of course he didn’t extend a special invitation to me personally.
90% of grapes grown in Liechtenstein are pinot noir, so that’s what you get to taste, a rosé, a red and an oaked red. They also produced a white pinot noir which I’d never tried before. I was inadvertently given the white pinot noir, but the rosé is so pale, you can barely tell a difference in the colour, the rosé is labelled as “feather white”. The white pinot noir was a light, dry wine, which was good, but the reds were the stars of the show. I do particularly like pinot noir, having tasted some very good quality pinot noir in Central Otago in New Zealand and in Oregon, both regions are renowned for this wine.
The first pinot noir was a light, fruity wine, but it was very good. The oaked pinot noir was certainly more robust and it was an extremely good wine, but I did prefer the first one. I had been given 3 generous glasses of wine for a tasting, and despite having eaten breakfast at 6am, I had the foresight to bring a couple of cheese rolls with me to soak up some of the alcohol at this hour of the morning. Just as well, because after I’d finished drinking the 3 generous glasses, I asked if I could try the white pinot noir as I’d never had one before, unaware that I’d been given the white instead of the rosé to start with. The lady in the winery then discovered she’d given me white instead of rosé, so she gave me the rosé to taste and some more white so I could compare the two. She asked me if I liked schnapps, as she had a pinot noir grappa available to taste and then I’d have tried all of the pinot noir products they had on offer. I confirmed that I did. The rosé was another dry wine, but it was more fruity and less dry than the white. I did prefer the rosé. I’m not a huge fan of rosé as it’s generally too sweet for me, but the pinot noir grape doesn’t produce a sweet rosé wine, instead I was getting lots of fruit flavour.
Now I do enjoy wine, I have educated myself about it over the years and I try and taste local wine if I go to a wine producing country, but I don’t favour using all the fancy descriptions you hear wine experts say, which is why you’re only getting adjectives like fruity, dry and light! But these were good quality wines. The terrain and soil is apparently ideal for pinot noir and the quality of the wine I tasted confirmed this.
And did I try the grappa? Yes, I did. I got another very generous glass to taste. It was a good grappa, very smooth, but also very strong, I was still breathing fire 4 hours later!
I bought a bottle of the pinot noir to take home with me to drink with my dad on New Year’s Eve, my mum isn’t a wine drinker so she won’t have a glass. It’s probably going to be our only opportunity to drink wine from Liechtenstein again.
Bearing in mind I’d drunk 5 glasses of wine and a glass of grappa at the tasting, I was practically dancing through the vineyard on the way out as the snow fell down around me. It snowed for the most of the 5 hours I was in Vaduz.
After the wine tasting I went to the Tourist Information Centre to get a postcard to send to my friend who collects them, I send one from as many places on my travels as I can and to get a stamp for my passport. The Tourist Centre in Vaduz has cashed in on the fact that people like evidence they’ve visited the principality. For 3 Swiss francs you can get your passport stamped. As I’m British and my passport is UK and an EU passport, I don’t get a stamp in any European country I visit at the moment. I was extremely disappointed when I visited Greenland in March, that as a dependency of Denmark, they don’t stamp your passport on arrival. Technically you’re still in Denmark. They even have a sign up at the airport saying “no souvenir stamps”. I would have happily paid a couple of pounds to have a Greenland stamp in my passport. But I have got a Liechtenstein stamp.
I then went to the Postage Stamp Museum to buy a ticket for the Treasury. The Postage Stamp Museum was free, but it was very small and probably only interesting to people who like stamps. Interesting fact, Liechtenstein has its own stamps, but doesn’t have its own currency. They use the Swiss franc here. So I saw some Liechtenstein postage stamps in the museum, but as I have no more than a passing interest in stamps I didn’t stay long.
The Treasury was very good though. A large collection of Faberge eggs, a crown, some weaponry, some beautiful paintings, I particularly liked the ones of the Rhine Falls and the view of Vaduz, but the most fascinating thing in the museum was in the final cabinet, two Liechtenstein flags that had gone to the moon and now were proudly displayed with their accompanying pieces of moon rock! I found it fascinating that such a tiny country had sent, not just one, but two flags to the moon on two separate moon landings and each flag had its own pieces of moon rock. Maybe the Prince of Liechtenstein is interested in space travel? I would recommend looking around the Treasury. I think the fact that I was in Vaduz in winter (and on a Monday!) could have had something to do with it being so quiet, but I had a very slow wander around the Treasury and I was on my own the entire time, apart from the security guard sitting in while I was looking at the paintings and exhibits. The Treasury was dimly lit and no photos were allowed, hence the absence of photos from the Treasury. And I bet you were all dying to see the Liechtenstein flags and their accompanying pieces of moon rock weren’t you?
From there it was a walk through the small town and past the Parliament building. There were some huts in the square, there in readiness for the Christmas Market starting at the weekend. They also had some huts near the Town Hall and an ice skating rink all ready for the Christmas market visitors.
A little further on from the Parliament building was the cathedral. When you think of cathedrals you think of huge, imposing churches, but this was Liechtenstein where everything was on a smaller scale. The “Cathedral” of St Florin is the parish church of Vaduz and it is also the burial place for the royal family. You can’t see the tombs of the royals, but you can go into the cathedral. The beautiful stained glass windows were very striking and it was also very peaceful. Unlike most cathedrals that always have crowds of visitors inside, St Florin was empty. It was nice to go into a peaceful chapel.
I also hiked up to see Vaduz Castle. Sadly Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein had not invited me to join him and his family for afternoon tea and it is the royal residence, so you can look at it from the outside, but you can’t go in. Prince Hans-Adam II obviously has enough money to make it unnecessary to open his home up to the public. It is a lovely walk up there on a snow covered path, there are lots of information boards in 3 languages telling you everything you never knew you needed to know about Liechtenstein as you hike the trail and you get wonderful views of the mountains from up there too, even though the low cloud meant the visibility was quite poor and wasn’t the best for taking photos. But I didn’t mind that. I love mountain regions. They’re beautiful in the summer, but they’re absolutely magical in the winter with all the snow. Personally I prefer to visit mountain regions in the winter, although I enjoy hiking in the mountains too, which is a lot easier, and in some cases, only possible in the summer. As mentioned before, I’m a hopeless skier, so skiing isn’t really an option for me.
I took a different path down from the castle to go past the landmark Red House, perched on the side of a hill, built in 1338 and painted red in the 19th century. It was a monastery in the past, but is now a private residence, so you can’t see inside. I think the point of the Red House though, is to see it from the outside.
And that was it, my time in Liechtenstein was up, time to walk to the bus stop to get to the station in time to catch my train. And will I visit Liechtenstein again? Maybe. But not on a Monday!
I travelled to Liechtenstein in December 2017.
I went wine tasting at the Hofkellerei des Fürsten von Liechtenstein within easy walking distance from Vaduz city centre. It costs 9CHF to taste 3 wines.
Tickets for the Treasury cost 8CHF and can be purchased from the Postage Stamp Museum which are located in the same building. Entry to the Postage Stamp Museum is free.
Liechtenstein Passport stamps cost 3CHF and are available from the Liechtenstein Tourist Information Centre in Vaduz city centre and the Postage Stamp Museum.
I travelled to Vaduz from Switzerland. You can get a train to Sargans and then a connecting bus from Sargans Railway Station to Vaduz Post in the city centre. I bought a Swiss Saver Day Pass for 52CHF which was valid from midnight until 05.00am the following day on the Swiss Rail Network and selected buses, including into Liechtenstein. Prices vary depending on how far in advance the ticket is purchased. Full details are available on the Swiss Railways website.