We knew that today would likely be a rainy day in Liechtenstein. It was forecast to rain more in the afternoon compared to the morning. We decided that we should visit the nation’s capitol city and the sights that are available in a country that has a many citizens as Bathurst.
We decided it would be possible to walk, something I am a fan of doing. We walked from Balzers to Vaduz which was about 8km in distance. This didn’t take us too long as we kept to the side roads of the main ‘highway’ which was just a slightly busy road with 1 lane going both ways.
Farmland in Europe is so similar in so many ways. Despite how far we have come from Luxembourg I can still see farms that have neat and tidy crops, with lines of native bush and trees that separate paddocks.
As we came into the capitol, I continued to see crops and took a photo of the main church and Castle Vaduz that is the Head of State’s private residence.
The current monarch in Liechtenstein is Prince Hans-Adam II. The castle is Castle Vaduz and the church is St. Florin Cathedral.
We visited the cathedral and wandered around the main part of the city. We had walked for about 2 hours now and decided on a lunch at a normal time of day, that being 12pm. Once again, we decided on a delicious meal from a local supermarket over the largely over priced restaurants.
We sat in the shade while we ate and enjoyed our meal. Mitchell shared some chocolate he also bought for lunch which was a very nice desert.
We passed a little Choo Choo train which I got the feeling threatened Mitchell’s sense of expertise and specialised skills set. As best as I can recall, something about ‘now everyone can drive a train’. Also a comment about how it was making a mockery of train drivers.
We decided to climb the mountain to get a closer look at the main castle of the Prince and royal family. Below is a photo of that.
We decided to climb higher to see if we could get a scenic view of the castle from a higher position but we had no luck. Our walk took us through some forests which were very scenic. We decided to walk back to the hotel from this position and we same some pretty cool views from being so high up.
We climbed higher and higher and reached a neighbouring village. The views kept improving.
It started to drizzle rain and as we came back down from such a high position, Mitchell headed down hill to the main track and I took a scenic walk through the edge of the mountains.
What was a 8km (2 hour) direct walk along the straight paths turned into a 14km (4 hour) walk twisting between the ridges and gullies of the mountains. I was not as high as I could be in the hills, but it was mighty pretty. Total for the day was about 25km of walking.
Along the 14 km from the castle, through the village and into the tracks in the mountains we (and later just I), did not see one other walker. We passed cars and one bicycle rider, but there were no other walkers through these hills.
Tomorrow we check out. We might do a walk but we will have the full weight of our bags.