Yesterday we took a drive over to Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is a tiny country that borders the eastern side of Switzerland. It's only about 62 miles across and the total population of the country is about 35,000. So when I say it's small I mean it's microscopic. Some interesting things about Liechtenstein...it's an incredibly rich country with lots of wealthy citizens (mainly in the financial sector.) The country is a tax haven for internationals, it has the second lowest unemployment rate in the world (at 1.5%), and it has no military. Also, Liechtenstein is technically a monarchy. The Prince lives in Vaduz Castle, which is in the village of Vaduz (Liechtenstein's capital) and is the world's 6th wealthiest leader. For ages Liechtenstein was an independent state of Austria, and then after World War I the country changed allegiances and formed a union with Switzerland. Today Liechtenstein shares an open border with Switzerland and even uses the Swiss Franc for money. So even though Liechtenstein is it's own country it's basically an independent state of Switzerland. Anyway, I've always been curious about this little piece of land. We've driven by it several times and I've always wondered what life was like there. So yesterday we found out.
We first drove to Gutenberg Castle, which is on the southern end of Liechtenstein in the village of Balzers. The castle is really cool looking. It's perched on a small hill overlooking the rest of the town. With the alps in the background it makes for quite a scene. We walked up the hill to take a closer look at it. Don't be fooled by our dress in the pictures. It really wasn't as cold as it looks. It was just incredibly windy. Anyway, after we checked out the castle we drove north to the village of Vaduz, which is the capital of the country. Vaduz was very surprising in the fact that it was a lot more modern than I expected. We expected to see a quaint "old town" village center, but instead we found several contemporary buildings and a lot of art museums and sculptures. It was nice...just not what we were expecting. The Vaduz Castle sits on a hill overlooking the village below, and that's where the Prince and the royal family lives. The castle is closed to the public so we didn't go in of course, but we got some pictures of it.
Overall, it was kind of fun saying "we're going to drive over to Liechtenstein. We'll be back in a few hours." As I told the kids on the way home, most people don't even know where Liechtenstein is, let alone get a chance to visit there. So I guess now our kids can say they've been to Liechtenstein. Hopefully one day they'll think that's kind of cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment