Vaduz - Feldkirch

Last evening we took a wander around Vaduz  - we had been warned not to expect an old medieval town even though the town is overlooked by the princely castle of the Von Liechtensteins. The small county is squeeze between the Rhine and the Austrian Alps. Liechtenstein is a democratic monarchy with its huge wealth stemming from banking and businesses setting up headquarters here because of the low tax regime. 

The town is very modern with the most interesting aspect being the gigantic covered square where hundreds were watching the England v Columbia on a large screen - and I suspect they were favouring the Columbians! Unfortunately, we didn’t stay to the end. 

Today:

A comedy of errors this morning! We needed petrol before we ventured much further - two petrol stations showed up on GMaps in our vicinity - but neither would take cash, and we had a lot of Swiss Francs we needed to get rid of. Then, after shopping at the supermarket  a window cleaner refused to open the exit door to let people out - until he had finished his cleaning! After he refused our  polite requests to let us through, a little force on the door was in order! Not the normal Swiss way of doing things - normally so polite and obliging.  

By mid morning the clouds appeared across the mountains, followed by loud thunder and lightening, and we were treated to a thunder storm of considerable proportions - including some serious hail stones. 

After our first world problems sorted, we drove through to Feldkirch in Austria. Feldkirch is an interesting city, it appears that it is totally surrounded by mountains. We drove into Feldkirch through a tunnel and left the city later through a tunnel. The medieval city centre lies at the foot of the Schattenburg (castle), the ancestral seats of the  Counts of Montfort. 

The Schattenburg Castle with the tunnel exiting the city directly under the foundations!

View of the Cathedral from the castle. 

Some useful Austrian Quizz Night trivia about Feldkirch would be; about the 1200s Hugo of Montford set up some farms here, in 1256 the Schattenburg Castle was commenced, in 1647 the Swedes conquered the town, in 1649 Martha Lochbüchlerin was tortured and sentenced in the last witch trial, in 1865 Arthur Conan Doyle studied German here, and, in 2008 the Markgasse (market Street) was used in scene in the  James Bond movie “The Quantum of Solace “. Now isn’t that interesting!

We left Feldkirch and drove on to Vandans, a small village in the Montafon Valley. The Golmer Joch rises to 2124 m just behind us! A train service  runs through the valley, but besides this it is so quite and peaceful - no wonder it is popular with walkers and riders.