Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Liechtenstein: the Real-Life Fairyland.

Again it has been pretty long since I've posted anything, but instead of apologizing and feeling bad like I have previously, I'm just going to say that I've been having to much fun in the real world to bother with the virtual one.  But now I have something to share and the time to do so...
Well, my story starts a couple months back when I had a friend tell me that he was in Liechtenstein, and like you may be thinking, I went, "Wow, where is that again?"  So I pulled up Google maps and discovered that it is not horribly far from where I am living.  Here's a map that shows it's location in case you're wondering:
After realizing the country's close proximity to me, I started looking into how long it would take to get there. It was just an idea in the back of my head, though, until I mentioned it to a friend and coworker of mine.  He thought it was a brilliant idea and started looking more seriously at trains.  He found that it would be 45 euro roundtrip for each of us, which is a little bit pricey for us a daytrip.  Then I realized that it might be cheaper to rent a car for a day.  So we looked at car companies and found that you can rent a Smart car for a day for only 70 euro, so when we split that it, was much cheaper.  Also the first 300 kilometers are free, so we decided to not just stop at Liechtenstein but to continue on to St. Gallen, Switzerland and Konstance, Germany.
So we decided to just go for it and picked April 21st (last Saturday) for our mini adventure.  Even though the weather report for all of the Bodensee region was for rain, we ended up having brilliantly beautiful sunshine that hit all of the snowy peaks of the Alps.  We set out at about 9 a.m. and returned at about 730 p.m. with several stops along the way.  
Liechtenstein is the second richest country per capita in the world, so it turned out to be a country that had a very dream-like feel to it.  The birds were singing, the sun was shining, the flowers were blooming, and all seemed right with the world.  Because of the country's excess of wealth, all of the streets, houses, and gardens were impeccably well kept.  Most of the cars that drove past were Audi's, BMW's, Mercedes, and Jaguar, with the occasional 'normal' car.  It seems nothing bad every happens there...  
I've included some of the best photos from our trip so maybe you can enjoy a bit of our trip too.
Bocksberg, Austria - I hiked this mountain a couple of weeks ago.

Austria

The Austria-Liechtenstein border

First picture in Liechtenstein

Like I said, sun shining, birds singing, flowers blooming, etc.

View from the front of a church, Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein Castle - You cannot tour it, as the prince still lives there.

Vaduz, Liechtenstein

Snow blowing off the mountains

On the red carpet in St. Gallen, Switzerland

St. Gallen, Switzerland

The Bodensee, Konstance, Germany

Michi and I before we left.  Oh, and they were out of Smart cars, so we got a Ford Fiesta.
It turned out to be loads of fun, and we had no problems whatsoever.  Now I can officially say I have been to another country!

1 comment:

  1. Wow!!! Sounds like an amazing trip! I'd love to go there someday.. looks & sounds like a fairytale! Of course, I'd want an invite from a wealthy person & explore their 'home' or should I say mansion! :) thank you for sharing! Makes me want to watch princess movies now, since I can't go :p

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