Vaduz it all Mean?

You rejoin us following an extremely restless night on the outskirts of Schaan, Liechtenstein’s most populous municipality, trying and failing to collect countless drips from our increasingly leaky ceiling. Thankfully, the rainstorm we had endured since entering the country had temporarily ceased and we were finally able to inspect the damage thanks to our ingenious portable ladder we had stashed away for just such events. Believing all of our orifices may need resealing we started calling up every motorhome repair shop in the country, all one of them, and attempted to explain or woe in our best German. This proved rather difficult and so our only remaining option was to wait until our next nation, campervan-mad Germany, to fix our colander of a roof and hope that the elements remained in our favour in the meantime.

Liechtenstein’s second largest city is its capital: Vaduz. Although, it only falls short by three hundred citizens while it swells to much greater numbers when the tour groups arrive at 9 am each morning for their novelty fridge magnets and mildly interesting stamps. We parked in the car park of the largest stadium in the country, a six-thousand-seater beauty where the likes of footballing gods Ronaldo, Mbappe, and Robbie Savage have graced the turf in recent decades, and went about completing our own tour of its grounds, much to the dismay of Lowri’s patience. A short amble after I was done, we were in the centre of the city.

With hopes high after our positive experiences in the capital of our last micronation, Luxembourg City, we headed straight to the Liechtenstein Tourist Centre to get the low down on all the hip and happening places to visit while in the city. Unfortunately, options were far more limited than we had imagined with two of their three museums closed and the other being the Postal Museum. We politely rebuffed the latter and, instead, proceeded to the more enticingly named Cathedral of St. Florin although, upon entry, we discovered that its rather diminutive stature defied its grand title. With storm clouds a brewin’ once more we were feeling rather deflated by our tour thus far. However, we had one transcendent hope to salvage our dull day: Vaduz Castle.

Visible from far and wide yet close enough to town to see through the bedroom windows, the emblem of Liechtenstein towers over Vaduz on a rock terrace that can be reached via a forested footpath from the central square. The castle was first built some seven hundred years ago and, since 1712, has been in the sole possession of the Prince of Liechtenstein. Unfortunately, since 1938, it has also been the residence of the prince’s family, and so isn’t open to the curious public. This was a significant blow as we were very much expecting to be waltzing through its grand, chandelier-lit ballrooms akin to Versailles by lunchtime, but no cigar.

With options diminishing, we swiftly sought a bar from which we could plan our next move. However, the one we chose was smokier than Fidel Castro’s front lounge and more expensive than his taste in cigars. While a part of the Schengen area, Liechtenstein is not an EU member state and so exercises her own decision-making processes including giving her citizens the right to smoke, almost, wherever they want and forcing guinea pig owners to keep them in groups of at least two (this is true). The government also bans themselves from entering the Eurovision Song Contest for fear of overly stimulating the locals (this isn’t true but is quite plausible given the lack of anything interesting to see or do).

While I may be being slightly harsh, Liechtenstein ain’t gifted with much in the way of appeal. This certainly wasn’t helped by the atrocious weather and the timing of our visit, I’m sure a snowy scene would’ve been far more attractive, but we struggled to fill our time there with anything in the way of fun or joy. While the locals were quite helpful and pleasant to chat to, even they were rather taken aback by our presence. Perhaps we’ll return in peak season, or perhaps we won’t, anyway, let’s head to Deutschland.

J