Yes, I thought to myself, gazing from rows of wooden-sided homes to the sheer blue drop below. This is where I would retire.
The tourism office had patiently instructed me the day before in the route for a morning hike.
I would tackle a fraction of the marked trail, which spanned the length of the country, for the intrepid and committed. My jaunt would cover a single leg, from the town center up into the mountains.
Forests, views, something of everything, he promised me.
Not half an hour’s walk answered for the first spectacular views and a royal residence to boot: Vaduz Castle, a medieval construction gone to seed over the centuries, transformed from prison to tavern and finally renovated to accommodate Liechtenstein’s prince and his family.
As it is the family’s private abode, visitors must content themselves with photos from across the way. At a festival in the summertime, though, the gates open to citizens celebrating the season’s first roses.
Near the trail’s end, it flowered into a sweeping view of the valley below, with misty blue slopes ringing the horizon.
I seated myself for a long stretch of mountain-gazing: lingering on each shape and shade, pondering the complexities and soaking in the serenity.
Besides rows of enviably positioned houses, each equipped with a proud garden, the little town of Triesenberg welcomes visitors to its polygonal church.
Outside, equally orderly and simultaneously strange, the graveyard afforded me many minutes of musing over the sculpted headstones and life stories abridged into stone inscriptions.
The glorious afternoon demanded a luncheon outdoors, and the waitress gamely accommodated my request (though fierce winds cost us a drinking glass – it slid smartly over the tabletop and smashed in an instant).
For dessert, Gruyère ice cream – what’s not to love about the Alps?
