June 2024. Vaduz. Liechtenstein.
You’ll remember Mrs RM’s world map,
the equivalent of my 2022 Good Beer Guide, and these little pins as precious as my marks in that GBG.
Last weeks “4 nights in Europe” completed Mrs RM’s raid on the “micronations“, which is the travel equivalent of doing the pubs on Sark, Scilly and Scotland.
She actually visited Andorra WITHOUT me last month, but as that trip involved approx. 82 hours on a bus straight after getting back from Albania I think it was a wise move to let her have that solo tick.
The No.11 bus from Sargans blasts out “Eye of the Tiger“; perhaps “The Final Countdown” would be more appropriate. The entrance into Liechtenstein, our fourth country of the day*, is therefore given additional pomp as we cross the Rhine,
to be greeted by a series of fairy-tale castles clinging to the mountainside.
We’ve booked the Youth Hostel a mile north of the capital, but explore Vaduz first. It’s a pretty frame with a slightly dull painting, though that castle looks great from anywhere.
Oh look ! There’s a fan park showing the football !
A bit modern, not the medieval centre you might hope for, but the art was great.
No, really great.
Oddly, Vaduz on a Sunday seems very sleepy, the only trad looking tavern firmly closed,
so Mrs RM gets us a sausage (top) from the main bakery. The actual sausage (£6) comes out 10 minutes after the bread roll(s) and proves Mrs RM’s most popular Facebook post for some reason.
If we’d waited 10 minutes we could have had currywurst from the fan zone watching the Dutch nick a late win v Poland,
but Feldschlossen and Hurlimann did the job and 0.4 litres for a fiver wasn’t bad at all.
We took a walk up the hill towards the modernist quarter (honest),
and stumbled across some frankly weird houses including this one with a “Sloth in the gardens”,
which depending on your age sounds like a UB40 hit or a Farnborough GBG pub.
By 6pm, two hours after arrival, I sensed we might have “done” Liechtenstein.
*UK, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein
retiredmartin 