Liectenstein | Age of Innocence

As Sally had recently broken the news about having a baby I thought it would be a good idea to have a last bonding holiday together as father and daughter before the big event as it is going to be a long time before we get this opportunity again. I was straight to http://www.ryaniar.com and I quickly located cheap flights to Germany for 28^th May.

I really had no idea where Friedrichshafen was and I really didn’t care, I was determined to have the flights so I booked them without giving the transaction a second thought. After it had been confirmed I set out to discover where it was exactly and to learn something about our destination. I was delighted to find that it is in the far southwest of Germany sitting alongside Lake Constance and within easy reach of its neighbours Switzerland and Austria and I quickly realised that here was a trip where I could pull in some extra countries in my quest to visit as much of Europe as possible using the low cost airlines to get me there. After consulting the guidebooks and planning a suitable itinerary the final plan was to fly to Friedrichshafen then drive to Switzerland and visit Liechtenstein as well.

We arrived in Germany at three o’clock in the afternoon and picked up the hire car with a minimum of fuss and drove directly to the city to find the hotel Schöllhorn, which wasn’t as straightforward as it should have been but eventually we found it at the third attempt and checked in. The hotel was a grand building in a good position with front rooms overlooking the lake but as I had booked a budget room ours had an alternative view over the car park at the back but this didn’t matter because as it was mid afternoon already we quickly organised ourselves and made our way out of the hotel and down to the lake to see what the city had to offer.

We walked for a while along the friendly waterfront and before very long selected a table at a bar with an expansive view of the water stretching across to Switzerland. Not that we could see Switzerland however because there was a strange mist that hung over the curiously dead calm water that rather spoilt the view of the Alps in the distance. A glance at the menu confirmed my excellent judgement in earlier purchasing a German phrase book at the airport because the menu interpretation looked especially tricky with very few words that meant anything to me.

This was a perfect spot for an afternoon sojourn and we sat and watched the lake that was busy with ferry boats crossing over to Switzerland or simply stopping off at all the little towns that border the lake and we sat and practised German fom the phrasebook and Sally impressed me with her natural grasp of the language. Later we walked along the promenade to check the schedules for our planned trip to the other side of the water the next day.

Even on this our first day, I found that I was being forced into a reassessment of the German people. Here in their own country they were so obliging and polite and not at all like the loud pushy archetypes that I had encountered before, usually on holiday in Spain or Portugal where in the 1938 style of Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland they notoriously commandeer the best pool side seats. I have to say that it was a real pleasure to be here and not really what I was expecting, it felt relaxed, refined and cultured and I was glad of that and to have my national prejudices so quickly readjusted.

After our drink it was time for food so we returned to the lakeside and not feeling especially adventurous found an Italian restaurant with a good menu and some vegetarian options for Sally. We were a little perplexed however when the place started to close down around us and the staff dragged buckets of water from the lake to fill the plant pots and to start to chain the tables and chairs down. When the lights went out we felt uncomfortably in the way so we finished our drinks, paid and sauntered back into the city. It was a lovely evening and the sky was beginning to clear and there was the occasional glimpse of a star or two and that made us optimistic about tomorrow and we returned to the Schöllhorn and as it had been a long day we went straight to bed and to sleep.

On 23^rd January 1719 Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, decreed that Vaduz and Schellenberg were united and elevated the newly formed territory to the dignity of Principality with the name Liechtenstein in honour of histrue servant, Anton Florian of Liechtenstein and it was on this date that Liechtenstein became a sovereign member state of the Holy Roman Empire.

Liechtenstein is the fourth smallest independent European state after the Vatican City, Monaco and San Marino. It is predominantly Germanic but the only German speaking state that does not have a national border with Germany itself. When the Holy Roman Empire was abolished by Napoleon in 1806 all of Europe seemed to forget about this tiny insignificant Principality and the royal family were able to keep their heads down and have continued to exist as an independent state ever since and as such it is the only state in Europe with a remaining direct continuity with the thousand year old Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne.

It is one of only two countries in the world that are double landlocked, the other is Uzbekistan, as neither of its neighbours, Switzerland or Austria have access to the sea either. It is therefore safe to say that fishing is probably not an important contributor to the economy in Liechtenstein.

After an excellent breakfast and with Sally in possession of the map and entrusted with navigation duties we set off from the hotel and attempted first of all to plot a route over the mountain behind us. The roads were narrow and after a while it became clear that they just went round in big circles without ever going across the top and down the other side so we had to abandon this course and return to the main road that took us effortlessly to the town of St Gallen, which is a sort of gateway to the Alps.

Here things became slightly more difficult and Sally’s navigational skills were tested to the limit as she was entrusted with the task of getting us through the town and on the road to Vaduz. Unusually for a girl it turned out that she is a natural at map reading and she guided us through and then selected a minor road and scenic route where the scenery was wonderful with green fields that looked like watercolours in the rain and clean alpine meadows all bathed under a gentle pastel blue sky.

In the fields adjacent to the roads there were honey coloured alpine cattle with full udders feeding on the lush grass and clanging noisily about on account of the huge cow-bells that they had hanging around their necks. They were friendly and inquisitive and when we stopped to admire the view they came close and posed obligingly for photographs.

We climbed the road through the town of Tregen and continued along the scenic route and through the Ruppen Pass with more impressive views and then we picked up a main road that took us south through the low-lying plains of the Appenzell region. This wasn’t quite so scenic but as we drove the Alps got closer and their high peaks began to loom overhead rising in dramatic style from the meadows and arable farmlands of this relatively flat part of Switzerland. Unfortunately the weather ahead was beginning to change and dark clouds were hanging in the mountain passes. J

ust before we crossed the border into Liechtenstein we came across a picturesque little town called Buchs where we stopped to admire the views of the Alps that completely surrounded this delightful little place and its attractive lake. We didn’t linger for long because by now we were excited about arriving at our destination so we moved on and resumed our gentle drive south.

We passed through the unremarkable state capitol of Vaduz with the castle of the ruling Prince, the Schloss Vaduz, perched high overhead and with magnificent views of all that he possesses stretched out below. Out of the city we began our ascent to the village of Triesenberg a thousand metres above Vaduz into the Alps. As we climbed a road with spectacular hairpin bends it unexpectedly started to rain, gently at first but about half way to the village it really started to fall quite steadily which made driving more difficult than it might have been and we were glad when we arrived at the top. We found a bar with an outside terrace overlooking the Rhine valley below and across into Switzerland and although it was still raining the terrace was sheltered and we took an outside table and enjoyed a drink and the magnificent view.

Although the rain was disappointing and the bar staff and the regulars thought we were slightly daft to be sitting outside we wouldn’t have missed this view for the world and it was so good that after the first drink we had a second and stayed a while longer.

First of all before setting back to Rorschach we drove to the very top of the mountain above the town to the winter sports resort of Malbun. The road was quiet and we made a leisurely ascent through small villages with an abundance of unoccupied winter ski chalets and as the road became steeper the car began to strain in objection to the uphill task.

The smell of burning clutch was enough to confirm that it wasn’t altogether enjoying the assignment of taking us to the top. When we completed the drive and stopped in Malbun we were one thousand six hundred metres above sea level and there were good views to be had all around us. The place was almost completely abandoned because by May there is no snow remaining in the valleys or on the ski slopes and only the very tops of the mountains still retained a covering.

We didn’t stay long at the top and not being able to get across the mountain because the road terminates at Malbun we returned down the mountain stopping in the Hamlet of Steg where we looked at the charming little chapel of St Wendelin that stands next to the River Samina that was flowing swiftly, full as it was of the last of the melted snow from the mountain top, and babbling excitedly as it surged towards the river valley below. The views were excellent and we stopped a time or two to enjoy them, although we were reluctant to leave them behind we wanted to leave the Alps and return to the lake where to the east of us we could see that the weather looked much better.

So we drove out of Liechtenstein the way that we came, back through the unremarkable Vaduz and then across the Rhine and back into Switzerland. Vaduz was a bit disappointed but I don’t really know what I was expecting really, it just sounded as though it should be more interesting than it is, the very fact that it has been able to remain independent through two hundred turbulent years of European history should have given me a clue. If none of its more powerful neighbours had taken a fancy to it or annexed it for themselves in all of that time that probably says a lot.

Although it is regarded now as a wealthy country this hasn’t always been the case because in the immediate aftermath of the Second-World-War the Prince of Liechtenstein had to sell off family heirlooms to stay solvent but in response to this sorry state of affairs the economy of Lichtenstein was completely modernised and the advantage of low corporate tax rates attracted many foreign companies to the country. These days the Prince is the world’s sixth wealthiest head of state, with an estimated wealth of three billion Euro (by comparison, the personal fortune of Queen Elizabeth II of England is estimated at seven and a half billion Euro) and the residents of the country enjoy one of the world’s highest standards of living. And that’s not bad for the world’s sixth smallest country!