Vaduz; Monday, 01 May, 2023

With breakfast completed I checked out of the hotel and headed down into the basement of the hotel where they had complimentary left luggage lockers in a secure area – the key fob for the locker giving you access through the door from the street – so I was able to store my bag there before heading out for the morning to have a bit more of an explore.

The weather forecast for the whole weekend had expected it to be pretty bad, but it had turned out that I’d had two really good days of weather, sadly the Monday morning was living up to the prediction of being very wet – so I decided rather than trapsing around in the pouring rain I’d do a bit more exploring of the country by bus. I hopped on the bus up to Schaan, the largest settlement in the country, where I was able to catch the bus over the border to the Swiss town of Buchs. Here I was able to change onto the train back through the width of Liechtenstein – non stop as the Liechtenstein stations are closed on public holidays as well as weekends – and onto Feldkirch in Austria where I picked up the bus back to Vaduz.

Back in Vaduz I picked up the little hopper bus that travels round the back roads of the city serving all the areas away from the main road, so I got to see much more of the town before reaching my actual goal of the Alte Rhinebrücke.

This wooden bridge was originally the main crossing point between Vaduz and the Swiss town to Sevelen on the opposite side of the Rhine. For motor traffic it’s subsequently been replaced by a modern bridge, but it’s still open for pedestrians to cross and more importantly at the mid point of the crossing are signs showing where you cross from Liechtenstein into Switzerland and vice-versa.

I spent just under 30 minutes at the bridge, which meant I was back at the bus stop just as the hopper bus was coming back round again so I jumped back on and caught it back into the centre of town and then wandered down to the Cathedral.

I had a quick look around the Cathedral of St. Florin before heading across the road to the LandesMuseum, the national museum of Liechtenstein.

The museum tells the history of the nation from the earliest archaeological finds through to the modern day, as well as having exhibits on the flora, fauna and geology of the country with a topographical model of the whole of the nation being one of the most interesting of the exhibits.

Just across the road from the museum is the treasury which houses some of the most important, and expensive, possessions of the nation – including the crown jewels and a Fabergé egg. Upstairs from the treasury is the Postal museum which was my last stop on my quick whirlwind tour of Vaduz’s cultural sites (the art gallery being closed as a new exhibition, due to open on the Wednesday, was being set-up!)

Having completed all the open museums I headed back to the hotel to grab my bag out of the luggage storage room and head over to the bus stop to catch the bus back to Sargans and the train back to Zurich.

What had been a very smooth journey back was suddenly interrupted on arrival into Zurich by the news that something had gone wrong with the railway line beyond the airport and the train was being diverted so it wouldn’t stop there. It meant I had to get off the train I should have taken through to the airport and instead change onto the local commuter train. Thankfully, by luck, I managed to position myself on the platform right where the doors were when the train pulled in so I was able to get a seat without any issue – though given it was only a 15 minute journey to the airport it wouldn’t have been a major issue. Once I’d finally arrived at the airport it was a smooth, if delayed, journey back to London to complete my journey home.