Last stop before home

The principality of Liechtenstein is the smallest German speaking country in the world; it is landlocked on both sides by high alpine mountain ranges, and at just over 160 square kilometres has a total population of 35,000 According to Wikipedia it is the world's largest producer of sausage casings and false teeth - go figure!

The "capital city", Vaduz, is not actually the biggest town in the country but is still the seat of the national parliament (consisting of 25 members!) and the home of the reigning princely family. Apparently it is also one of the very few capital cities in the world without an airport or railway station.

Vaduz is an extremely compact and very neat little town, but for such a small town has alot of art! The dark block-like museum of modern art dominates the centre of town, and everywhere you walk there are sculptures, including a piece from that famous Colombian artist Botero. Liechtenstein is also famous for postage stamps, so of course Vaduz has a museum dedicated to those miniature works of art!

The most prominent landmark of Vaduz however is the Vaduz Castle. It remains the home of the princely family and is visible from almost everywhere in town, being perched atop a steep hill in the middle of the city. The castle is not open to visitors and the flag was flying when we were there, meaning the Prince was at home!

Being situated between 2 mountain ranges means everywhere you go in Liechtenstein is up, up and up. But what goes up must come down! We also made a visit to Liechtenstein's one and only ski village of Malbun (if you say it quickly enough it sounds like ... Melbourne !) Vaduz lies at an altitude of just over 700 metres and Malbun at 1,600 metres and with just 15 kilometres between the two that road was pretty steep! And the road literally ends in Malbun, there is nowhere else to go except turn around and go back down again.

Although not the cheapest place we have ever been, Liechtenstein was well worth the quick visit; and we now have yet another weird and wonderful snowdome for our collection ;-)

Alli xxx