- Nestled high in the Alps, Liechtenstein has a population of less than 40,000 and is the second least-visited country in Europe.
- With no international airports or large train stations, it's not an easy place to reach.
- At about 62 square miles, it's also more than eight times smaller than Los Angeles.
- Despite that, it's packed with things to do — hiking takes on an otherworldly dimension, the air is always fresh, and the people are among the friendliest in Europe.
- I recently spent several days in the country while traveling across Europe by train — and would recommend it to anyone.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
"Everyone knows everyone – it's like one big family!"
It was hard to doubt Erik the taxi driver's words as we descended the mountain, speeding through fog so thick it felt like the world existed in the space of a few feet. He told me that Miran, who owned the bar that bore his name next to the train station in Schaan where we'd met, had come to Liechtenstein from Syria. He also knew Margareta, who worked at Hotel Oberland where we'd just departed, and had come over from South America more than a decade ago.
Nestled high in the Alps between Switzerland and Austria, few people know of Liechtenstein. In fact, with just 85,000 visitors in 2018 according to the World Tourism Organization, it was until recently the least-visited country in Europe (when it was "overtaken" by San Marino).
I recently spent several days in the country during part of a journey across Europe by train. Here's what it's like to visit the country that has fewer than 40,000 people — and why I'd go back in a heartbeat.
Even by European standards, Liechtenstein is a tiny country.
Sandwiched between Switzerland and Austria, Liechtenstein is about 62 square miles in size — more than eight times smaller than Los Angeles, as Business Insider's Katie Warren writes. That makes it not only one of the smallest countries in Europe, but one of the smallest in the world.
With no major international airports, ports, or large train stations, it is also difficult to get to.
Given the challenges in reaching it, it probably comes as no surprise Liechtenstein is the second least-visited country in Europe. Just 85,000 people visited in 2018, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization — placing Liechtenstein above only San Marino in the rankings of Europe's least-visited countries. And still, those tourists are more than double Liechtenstein's population of fewer than 40,000 people, according to official government statistics.
Despite its isolation, Liechtenstein has a thriving economy. As Business Insider's Katie Warren reported, the country has the second-highest per capita GDP in the world ($165,028 per person per year), behind only Monaco. It also claims to have zero national debt, and its economy is focused on manufacturing, the financial industry, and the services industry — in fact, Mental Floss reports that it's the world's leading manufacturer of false teeth.
With no guarded borders, it also keeps getting accidentally invaded — by famously peaceful Switzerland, no less.
Liechtenstein hasn't had an army since 1868, and is in union with Switzerland (it uses the Swiss franc as its currency, for example) — but even then, as news.com.au reports, Swiss troops seem to have a habit of getting lost in the woods and accidentally invading Liechtenstein.
One of the most "serious" recent incidents occurred in 2007 when about 170 Swiss soldiers on a training exercise ventured about a mile into Liechtenstein before realizing they'd invaded. Liechtenstein's response? A statement from the government that said "these things happen."
As Liechtenstein government spokeswoman Gerlinde Manz-Christ told ABC News at the time: "It has happened before. Nobody really realized it."
Given how few people go there every year, I couldn't resist making the trip.
It was a chance to visit a place that few have in order to break up my rail journey across Europe before starting a new job with Insider, and to finally experience the culture of the Alps for the first time in my life. It was also somewhere about as different from where I'd spent the previous 16 months living in Dubai as you can possibly get. I was sold before I'd even finished reading my first article about Liechtenstein.
Besides, I needed to do it eventually, anyway: I'm on a quest to one day visit every country in the world.
To get to the country as part of my journey by rail across Europe, I first began by taking a train from Zagreb, Croatia to Austria ...
Trains were already very different than they were in eastern Europe, and the ticket from Croatia to Liechtenstein — which I bought online in advance from Austrian Federal Railways ("Österreichische Bundesbahnen" in German) — cost €119.20 ($132).
The hills of Croatia gave way to cute lakeside towns in Slovenia, themselves giving way to the mountainside villages Austria is famous for. As I wrote for Insider previously, it really was like traveling through a painting.
... And another train from Austria to Switzerland ...
Switching trains at Schwarzach-St Veit train station in Austria, the mountains were becoming taller, the valleys deeper, the fog ... well, it was becoming awfully foggy.
... Followed by a third train from Buchs, Switzerland to Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein.
Hardly anyone else got on the train at the small station in Buchs — and no one else did other than myself at the even smaller station in Vaduz, the capital, and one of Liechtenstein's largest cities (even though it has a population of only about 5,000 people). Streets dead silent, I'd made it.
Arriving late at night, I was lucky to already have a hotel booking. But in such a small country, getting a cab took a while.
I waited at the train station for about 30 minutes then headed into a bar next door, where the owner and the bar's namesake, a kind man named Miran who I later found out was originally from Syria, set me straight.
"Everyone owns a car here," he explained. "So there are hardly any taxis."
Luckily, he said he'd call one for me. A few minutes later, Erik and I were heading higher up into the mountains. Closer to the stars ... but still not above the fog.
Finally, we made it to my hotel. On the side of a mountain above Vaduz, Hotel Oberland's check-in was completely automated.
Located in a mountainside village called Triesenberg, I must admit that out of the roughly 90 countries I've been to so far, I've never before stayed at a hotel where check-in and check-out were done completely by machine like at Hotel Oberland.
While the touchscreen machine was quick and easy to use, I missed chatting with hotel staff — especially in a destination as mysterious as Liechtenstein.
Looking like a grand old Swiss chalet, my room was small but comfortable. After a long day of traveling, I slept well.
Narrow enough that the palms of my hands could easily press up against opposite walls if I stretched my arms out, the wood-floored room had a coziness about it — and plenty of space to store the two suitcases and backpack I'd been carrying with me for days that constituted my entire life's possessions.
Due in no small part to about 15 hours of traveling in one day — and several long days of traveling by rail before that — I slept more soundly than I had in a while. The soft, double-blanketed bed was probably a factor, too.
Come morning, I was all set for a day of Alpine exploring — especially after the extraordinary breakfast.
Breakfast was simple, yet astounding. Savory instead of sweet, they had rye bread, several kinds of meat, multiple types of cheese, yogurt, eggs, granola and, of course, sausages. As with check-in, it was all self-serve — including the fancy coffee machine, which could make everything from lattes and espressos to mochas, mochaccinos, and plain black coffee.
The architecture was similarly plain, yet extraordinary. Low ceilings, wood-paneled walls, and cozy nooks and crannies all around — as I sat at one of the small wood tables to eat, I felt more like I was having breakfast back on my parents' farm in the perpetually green, perpetually wet hills west of Portland, Oregon than anywhere, at any time, since I last visited them back in 2014. It was so peaceful, I didn't want the breakfast to ever end. I don't know if I've ever been so content during a single meal.
Next up, it was time for some wandering. A thick fog still blanketed everything.
I stepped outside in about half a dozen layers of long-sleeved clothing (Dubai's heat really had spoiled me).
The view literally took my breath away.
Instead of seeing Liechtenstein, and Switzerland beyond, below me from my mountain perch, I saw nothing but a sea of clouds. They curled and billowed and spread into all manner of fantastical shapes. Every now and again, rays of light from the sun would illuminate the scene, giving the cloudy sea a sort of inner glow.
For a long time, I just stood there, spellbound. It was like looking at literal heaven.
The fog never let up the entire time I was in Liechtenstein. I had never seen it so thick anywhere.
Always an avid reader, my first thoughts of the persistent fog was how similar it was to its description in some of my favorite gothic novels, like Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre," Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," Bram Stoker's "Dracula," or even Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde."
I started by trying to descend the mountain down into Vaduz. Because the fog was so thick, it was hard to tell where I was going.
At times, it was only possible to see about the same distance as a car is long — the fog was that thick. It was also surprisingly bright. You could be forgiven for thinking that they had somehow slipped through a crack in space-time — that is, if they didn't encounter large, light brown cows with bells hanging from their necks like I did far more regularly than I saw other people, much less cars.
Jingling bells of cows, goats, pigs, and sheep all around made for a beautiful soundtrack.
Continuing my walk, my heart was aflutter, and spirit soaring. Who needed headphones when you had this? And who'd want to drown this out, anyway?
Passing through the rolling green fields and farms, I felt like I was in "The Sound of Music."
All the green and farmland really did feel a lot like where I grew up — though a fair bit foggier, of course. It was cold, but not as cold as I feared it might be for being high up in the mountains in autumn. Amazingly, I also couldn't hear any cars.
Liechtenstein really did feel like a real-life version of the famous musical.
Eventually, I made my way into Vaduz. It felt more like visiting a cute mountain village or resort town than the capital of a country.
"Cute" really was one of the best words to describe Vaduz, where the tallest buildings seemed to be the steeples and spires of medieval churches. With only about 5,000 people, it's the kind of place where — as Erik said — almost everyone knows each other. As a result, crime is low, and residents are very friendly, as I found out.
Though I encountered one group of Chinese tourists, there didn't seem to be any other tour groups around, like you usually see in European cities.
Not only were the streets very clean, but there was plenty of room to walk without worrying about running into someone or getting caught up in a crowd. It was a marked change from many other European destinations, which have been struggling to deal with record numbers of tourists ruining the environment and local culture.
All around were cool paths to wander down. It was by accident I ended up at Vaduz Castle, the home of the Prince of Liechtenstein.
Dating to the 12th century, people have been regularly living in Vaduz Castle since about 1287. It's not a huge castle, but it is the home of Hans-Adam II, the Prince Regent of Liechtenstein (its monarch and head of state), and his family — in fact, it has served as the home of Prince Regents for centuries.
Public tours of the inside of the castle are not available, but it is possible to walk around the beautiful, wooded grounds and admire the stone battlements. Another great thing: picturesque as it is, there were literally no other tourists around at all. Not one.
My wanderings next took me through a beautiful forest, which felt like it belonged in a fairytale or epic fantasy novel.
Surrounding Vaduz Castle were what I dubbed "Fairytale Woods" — because a fairytale was exactly what they reminded me of. Mist clinging to the ground, the forest had a supernatural, otherworldly quality.
There were no princesses to rescue — but thankfully no evil witches to run from, either.
Leaves and sticks crunching under my feet, I could hear various birds and woodland creatures all around. Like the area around the castle, no-one else was to be seen — in fact, for however long I was in the woods, I didn't see or hear another person at all.
It was magical.
The peaceful nature all around offered plenty of time to reflect.
The past few days of traveling across Europe had been an absolute whirlwind — it was hard to imagine that, just a few days earlier, I was in Istanbul wondering what the journey ahead would be like. Even though I'd barely been in Liechtenstein for a day, it felt like I'd been in the country a lot longer — time seemed to have little meaning amid such serene surroundings.
My thoughts were interrupted, however, by a fear I might be getting lost.
With darkness descending, it was a worry I might get stuck in the mountains and not be able to find my way back in this remote place, by the herds of curious goats and cows. It was an irrational fear. Was it even possible for bad things to happen in such a lovely place?
Well... in 1968, Swiss soldiers on another training exercise accidentally lobbed five shells into Liechtenstein. However, according to newspaper reports, only "a few chairs in a garden restaurant" were damaged in the incident.
I had nothing to worry about, though, as incredibly friendly farmers were more than happy to tell me how to get back to my hotel.
It was easy to follow the elderly local women's instructions, relayed with wide smiles in the unique Liechtenstein dialect of German (German is Liechtenstein's official language, though everyone speaks perfect English). Even as bad with directions as I am, I encountered no further difficulties, and returned to the Hotel Oberland about an hour later — just as dusk was making it even harder to see what was in front of me.
I was up early in the morning. It was still foggy.
But far from being eerie, there was a strange warmth to it, like being wrapped in a cozy blanket that traveled with you wherever you went.
Liechtenstein was among the most peaceful places I'd ever been — including the famously placid Pacific islands and San Marino, the European micronation located entirely within Italy I'd visited a few months earlier. The world was just... simpler here. Less stressful. Safer. And, as I'd learned, a whole lot more open.
After another amazing breakfast, a sad reality dawned with the literal dawn: it was soon time to leave. Stepping out into the crisp air, I took another cab.
After taking trains from Buchs, to Sargans, to Zürich, and to Paris, and finally underneath the English Channel to the UK on the Eurostar, I went to sleep in London barely 12 hours after waking up in Liechtenstein.
From pastoral peacefulness and the mooing of cows to the bright big city lights and constant din of planes, trains, and automobiles: it was as if I'd traveled between two entirely different worlds — even though it was only a little more than 650 miles between Liechtenstein and London, or less than the distance from New York City to Chicago (which is about 790 miles by car).
That night, I dreamed of being back in Liechtenstein.
The peacefulness. The fresh mountain air. The green. The fog. The architecture. The food. The people. And, of course, all the farm animals: Liechtenstein had made an amazingly strong impression, the sights, sounds, and smells searing themselves into my memory like the grilled sausages that seemed to be a staple at every restaurant and cafe. I wanted to be back there.
With so much going for it, odds are others will soon be dreaming of Liechtenstein, too.
The word "getaway" describes Liechtenstein well. The only question is how long it will remain unspoiled.
Another thing that hopefully won't change is just how welcoming the people in Liechtenstein are — it may not be for everyone, but there's certainly a joy to visit somewhere for the first time and be made to feel like family, and already hear all the local gossip.
Read more:
https://ift.tt/2SiFxJI