Vaduz, Liechtenstein and Zurich, Switzerland

A while back we set ourselves the goal of visiting 60 countries by the end of 2015. Our definition of 'visiting' is aligned with this country-ticking objective - cross the border and it counts!
So when we noticed that Vaduz - capital of the small Principality of Liechtenstein was directly accessible by train and bus from Chur, Switzerland (our location from the last blog post); we couldn't resist the trip to see it. Then after just two hours of sightseeing, we were back in Switzerland, on route to Zurich for the final stop on our four day Swiss rail journey.


Travelling to Liechtenstein
From Chur railway station it is only a short train ride to the township of Sargans and then an onward connection to Vaduz via the bright yellow Liechtenstein double decker bus. Public transport fares were all covered by the Swiss Rail Pass, although it is important to note that Liechtenstein uses the Swiss franc for currency.

The Liechtenstein bus

After about half an hour of commuting, the bus pulled up at the main stop near a square used heavily by the big coach tour companies like Trafalgar and Contiki as a comfort break. Stashing our backpacks into the luggage lockers, lunch was a pastry and roll from a nearby cafe and we were straight into sightseeing.

Vaduz Town Center
The Town Hall and the numerous statues outside was the epicenter for all tourist activity - souvenir shops and cafes lined the streets and Vaduz Castle dominated from the hill above.

Vaduz Town Hall

Bronze statues

Vaduz Castle
Vaduz Castle is the official residence of the Prince of Liechtenstein. Climbing the hill to reach the castle (not open to the public), is a lesson in the history of the principality as there are many signs outlining its geographic and political features.

At Vaduz Castle

View from the lookout near the top of the hill

An architecturally interesting house

Goodbye Liechtenstein
As we still had a bit of a journey left to reach Zurich in order to catch our flight home to London; it was very quickly time to say goodbye to this micro-country. The walk from the town hall back to the bus stop took under ten minutes, passing other attractions including the Museum and some Government buildings.

The museum

An exhibition center

A government building

The bus ride back to Sargans station provided us with some further views of another castle on the border with Switzerland.

Zurich
The next train ride (we were losing count of how many we had taken over the past few days) crossed through some some pretty lake-side scenery including the length of Lake Zurich - where two years ago we had taken a ferry cruise and saw a man attempting to commit suicide only to be saved by one of the many pleasure boats that were out that day and handed over to the police (see separate Zurich blog post).

Swans at Lake Zurich

Movenpick ice-cream
We thought that on arriving in Zurich we would crave Swiss chocolate. However a small advertisement in the corner of the city map alerted us to the Movenpick ice-cream boutique - we made a beeline straight for it.

Movenpick Swiss ice-cream heaven

Kiwifruit ice-cream sundae

Sorbet tasting menu

Sightseeing in Zurich
The main city sights had been ticked off during our previous visit to Zurich in 2012, so there was more time to leisurely just wander through the small laneways and dodge a swarm of bees that had taken over a pavement. As the flight home crossed through dinner-time, it was wise to have an early pre-flight meal and it didn't take a lot of convincing to not try to hunt down the Bavarian style beer hall that we had visited the last time around.

One of the laneways in the Old Town

Cute glass dog statues

Paintings outside a church

Beware the bees

Zeughauskeller

The restaurant that we had been searching for - Zeughauskeller, is a bit of an icon in Zurich. Housed in a building dating back to 1487 (before Columbus discovered America as proudly stated on its website), it was previously used as the arsenal storehouse. It carries on the tradition through the interior decorations of weapons and ammunition. We visited quite early in the afternoon when it was possible to get a table without waiting, although by the time we left the hall was full of patrons - the perfect place to hang out for beer and sausages.

Outside the Zeughauskeller

Sausages and famous potato salad

Soon it was home-time via the train back to Zurich Airport. This ended four days of rail travel, beautiful scenery, and besides the snow capped mountains and efficiency of the Swiss system - we will also remember the many beautiful springtime flowers as shown by the collage below.

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