One day in Liechtenstein - the easiest country we’ve ever visited

Recently me and my family spent a few days in Switzerland and based ourselves in Basel. At some point we figured it would be a shame not to tick off one of those “we were there for a few hours” countries, so we decided to do a day trip to Liechtenstein.

From Basel we took a train to Buchs, and from there a short bus ride to Vaduz. Swiss train prices are something else… super efficient, but definitely not cheap. We got a Swiss Travel Pass (day pass), which made the whole thing way more manageable and also covered local transport. Once we arrived, it even let us use the local bus in Vaduz for free, which was a nice bonus.

Vaduz itself is tiny. Really tiny. It’s basically one main street and everything important is either on it or right around it. We walked through the center, saw the Vaduz Town Hall, a few monuments, and just got a feel for the place. We also went into a small modern art museum on the main street. It was quite strange and not very interesting, but it was free so we just checked it out anyway.

The main highlight was Vaduz Castle. It sits on a hill above the town and you can see it from pretty much everywhere. There is no access inside, but it’s the main landmark and the views from up there are honestly the best part of the visit. Classic Alpine scenery, valley and mountains everywhere you look.

We also crossed the Old Rhine Bridge, which connects Switzerland and Liechtenstein. No border control, no checkpoints, nothing dramatic at all - you just walk across and suddenly you are in another country.

After that we strolled around a bit more, took some photos, and quickly realized we had basically seen the whole country. Liechtenstein is extremely compact and you can easily cover it in a couple of hours.

We headed back to Basel the same day. It was a short trip, but really interesting just for the experience of visiting another country so easily, and for how different it feels - more like a quiet Alpine town than an actual separate country with a long list of sights.