The Liechtenstein Entry

Time for the first microstate! With an area of barely 160 km² the principality is quite accurately just half as large than my hometown Dresden, not even really visible on a normal globe. Looking closer, there's a small slip of land between Switzerland and Austria, but what exactly is there behind? What does it look like over there, what's the difference to its neighbors and is there even enough space? Well have a look.

The entrance to a wooden bridge, crossing the river Rhine. This shore right here where I took the photo is part of Switzerland's territory, but if you cross the tunnel you will emerge in another country...

The state border of Switzerland and Liechtenstein is open, just a sign on each of the bridges tells the traveler where exactly it is. There are quite a few things both neighbors have in common, for example not being member of the EU and the Swiss Franc being used as currency, causing an outrageous level of prices. And then there's the German language - at least in form of dialects. But still: Liechtenstein is not Switzerland, which is made clear to the visitors by flags and banners everywhere and even numberplates attract attention with their very special combination of colors.

Now have the obligatory load of facts: It really is a small place, there are barely 37.000 citizens in all of the country. Vaduz, the capital, just has 4000 inhabitants, making it one of the world's smallest captitals. Ignoring the Vatican, only two island countries in the pacific (Palau and Tuvalu) have less people living in their seat of government. And if we want to be hypercorrect: There aren't even any towns in Liechtenstein; even Vaduz never got town privilege and officially is just a "main locality". But enough of the blabbering and numbers! How does it look like over there?

Somewhere in the center.

The center of Vaduz is full of cultural conditions and of course banks. Finances are a huge issue here, it's not for nothing that you have men in black suits walking about everywhere. So it's not surprising that Liechtenstein University's specialty is economic sciences. (And architecture.)

German speakers notice: The letter"ß" doesn't exist around here, just like in Switzerland.

Apart from bankers and economy students you especially meet tourists here. Not the kind of huge masses like at Neuschwanstein castle, but there are still enough people who want to see such a curious little country once. Just like myself, after all.

Asian family having fun with Liechtenstein's flag.

One of the usual tourist trains, of course wearing the colors of said flag.

There's not much going on with actual trains by the way, Vaduz doesn't even have a station. Just the neighboring locality Schaan, having 6000 inhabitants and thus being larger than Vaduz, is connected locally with Austria by train. Most of public transport happens by bus instead, you see the yellowish green government-owned vehicles all the time.

For example here next to the main road.

So what do tourists want to see here? Well, for example there's the central square with its parliament building and Landtag building:

Others will prefer to visit the post office, since small countries like this are of special interest for philatelists. That's why a few popular stamps were chosen to decorate the pedestrian area:

You can also stuff your belly with (overpriced) cutlets in one of the many restaurants. Alternatively you can visit the museum of modern art or just have a look outside at how it's implemented in modern architecture.

Meanwhile above the city there's a less modern, but all the more important building: Vaduz castle. This is where the pricipality's ruler overviews his people.

Liechtenstein is a constitutional hereditary monarchy, so the head of state is a real prince (Fürst), who hands down this function to his descendant. His Serene Highness Hans-Adam II. Fürst von und zu Liechtenstein is the name, by now the eldest son, hereditary prince Alois, took over the govenmental business as representative.
So yeah, the boss is still living in a castle here, which means there are no guided tours.

Private property, no sightseeing. (Also, bad German grammar.)

By the way, after taking this photo the gates to the left automatically closed. Perhaps I pestered the royal family a bit too much.

Hillside behind the castle. From the valley it looks like there's just woods.

And if you want to know what the prince is seing when he looks out of the window:

You can guess from those pictures already, but the small population leaves enough space for some rural countryside. A lot of it is quite suitable for cycling even.

But of course not everywhere it's as flat as the pictures might make believe. Down here in the valley 90% of the population is based, but those mountains in the background are also part of Liechtenstein. Two thirds of its land coverage consist of slopes and mountains, reaching up to 2599m. (So in that respect the microstate has more to offer than the whole Australian continent - that one's tallest mountain just measures 2228m.) Regrettably I haven't been up there, but apparently the orchid flora is among the most abundant in all of the Alps.

What else can you find in the mountains apart from flowers and rocks? Villages, of course. Some of them are located quite far off the beaten track and there are separate dialects up there that the standard German speaker barely understands. Even other Liechtenstein people have difficulties with the variety of Walser German that's being spoken in the locality of Triesenberg.

Well then... Since I'm nearly out of pictures that's all for today. I hope I was able to give my readers (lol) a more or less coherent impression. So, good bye for now.