Vaduz; Sunday, 30 April, 2023

I had a bit of a lie in for the morning and then, after a quick breakfast, headed out of the hotel over to the bus stop to pick up the bus back to the south of the country and the last major settlement before the Swiss border of Balzers and it’s impressive castle of Burg Gutenberg.

Most of the castle is closed to the public, but some parts are open on Sundays from the beginning of May until October. Given that whilst it was a Sunday it was also only the 30th of April this was clearly going to mean not being able to see inside, but I was able to look around the outer courtyard and from here there are amazing views over the town and the surrounding countryside with the peaks of the alps towering around you.

After spending some time wandering around both the castle grounds and the town itself I headed back over to the bus stop and hopped back on the bus north, through Vaduz and onto the town of Bendern where a quick change later had me on the bus north to the town of Schellenberg – the last major settlement in the Northeast of the country and consequently it’s high ground guarding the valley that links Liechtenstein to Austria.

Naturally there are castles up here – both in ruins, but consequently it means you can look round much more of them than you can in Balzers. I spent quite a bit of time taking in the ruins and the views of the Obere Burg located on the Northeaster side of the town. From there it was about a 1.5Km walk down to the Untere Burg that looks out west over the Rhine and Switzerland.

On the way I stopped off at the Bäuerliches Wohnmuseum, this is an original 16th century building that has been preserved to show how life would have been like in the past. It’s open as a museum just two Sundays a month between April and October, and by pure luck this happened to be one of the days it was open so I was able to have a look around before heading on down to the ruins of the Untere Burg.

Having taken in two castles and an ancient farmhouse I hopped back on the bus and made my way back to Vaduz where I did the very touristy thing of taking the land train tour round the capital. The tour weaved its way through the town centre and out to the river but was pretty light on information and facts and quite heavy on polka music.

Back in the centre of Vaduz I decided that I really ought to do some exercise as I’d mostly spent the last two days sat down on public transport. From there centre of Vaduz there is a 1.5-2 hour walk that you can take called the Grüschaweg Trail that heads up hill, past the castle (still lived in by the royal family so closed to visitors) and then up along the ridge of the mountains overlooking the Rhine before a final climb up into Triesenberg. That all felt like a little too much climbing, so instead I caught the bus back up to Triesenberg and did the walk in the opposite and very much more pleasant downhill direction back to Vaduz.

Back in Vaduz I had another hotel picnic dinner before heading out later in the evening to have a wander around Vaduz at night. It turned out that at 10pm on a Sunday evening virtually nobody is out and in the 45 minutes or so that I was wandering around I think I saw only about 3 other people.

After taking a few night time photos I headed back to the hotel and turned in for the night.