While I was in the bathroom, Kat and Laurel hatched a plan for us to spend the day in Liechtenstein! Kat had originally thought it would be nice to walk across a country and, understandably had considered Liechtenstein a top contender. She was chatting to Laurel about it and Laurel kindly offered us her car for the next day instead!
What a present! A car to have to independence to travel around Switzerland and Liechtenstein for the day! We set out (not too early) for Vaduz, a simple 2 hour drive from Laurel's at Kilchberg only stopping to pick up our train tickets to Innsbruck for the next day. Our hastily manufactured plan was mainly focused on doing a walk along the "Prince's Way", above the Liechtenstein Castle. First we stopped off for a map and a drink, wandering the street in Vaduz and poking around to learn a very little bit about the place. I learned more than I did from watching The Knight's Tale but I do not think I am likely to win any history awards for this region of the world.
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| Not enough castles have views these days |
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| Kat loved this statue in town |
I wanted to understand how Liechtenstein could become such a wealthy independent nation (with unemployment as low as 1.5% in 2007) with a parliament and a popular monarchy that still holds a lot of power. The key to the wealth is obviously low corporate taxes, with more corporations registered there than there are citizens. But I am not sure how they really became or developed their independence from the nations around. Of course, it turns out that it is "kind of complicated". From what I understand, when Napolean "took over" the Holy Roman Empire, he banished many of the pre-existing structures. And then, when Napoleon was deposed, the vaccuum left behind allowed Liechtenstein's monarchy to do some clever politicking, to set itself up first as part of Austria-Hungary and then independently but linked with Switzerland. Really, it would just be better if you read the wiki, and if you really want to understand it, probably go and find an better source of information!
It was a beautiful sunny day, and we were counting our blessings as we wove Laurel's car up the mountain road to Geifels, the start of the Fürstensteig (The Princes' Way) walk. It was great how quickly we left Vaduz behind on the small winding road, only once having to back downhill to let a fat bus through. The walk was cold in the shade and toasty in the sun, once we cleared above the treeline, we could see over the Rhine Valley where Vaduz sits. It was fresh and beautiful up there and another throwback to Nepal where sometimes we had to grab onto a cable while walking/scaling across a rocky area.
We didn't make it all the way to the Three Sisters but did enjoy sitting up in the clean mountain air, admiring the tiny country in front of us. Fun fact: a survey in 2006 using updated technology found that Liechenstein's borders are actually 1.9km longer than previously thought!
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