If you’re not into walking you probably won’t find much to do in Liechtenstein but we’re really rather fond of dragging ourselves out of bed at obnoxious hours to go and upset our calf muscles in beautiful places. This is what we did today. We’d spent an inordinate quantity of time admiring Switzerland, we figured we should go a bit further into Liechtenstein and see what it had to offer. We caught a bus into Vaduz and were on the first bus into Malbun in the mountains. Malbun is a tiny place. I don’t think they see a lot of tourists outside of peak season which seemed to be a few months in winter for those mentalists that enjoy sliding down snow on various planks of wood, and a couple of months in the summer for us perfectly sane folks who like walking a lot and have a complete lack of respect for anything our poor legs go through.

We started early in an effort to get a few miles in before it became an oven. There was no one else around, just us two bleary-eyed lesbians clutching backpacks containing water and sandwiches, wondering if we’d regret not having hiking poles. There was a walk I’d really wanted to do until I read reviews that said things like “must have a good head for heights”. Yeah no, I do not have one of those. My head is good for being roughly 165 centimetres from the ground, thank you very much. So after a bit of research we’d decided to walk to Steg, but in a big fuck off loop. Not directly to Steg, that would be far too easy. And along a road.

It turned out to be a really lovely walk rather than any manner of brutal hike. It started off by steering us uphill but in a way that said, “Hey tourists, I want you to enjoy this and not finish the day questioning all of your life choices.” It’s just eyehole fodder everywhere you point your face. Hills and mountains and flowers everywhere. One particularly pleasant viewpoint had the same kind of firepit we’d seen yesterday by the ruins, complete with a shed full of wood, and a book swap. Yeah no, a book shop up a hill in a place of outstanding natural beauty wasn’t on my bingo card today. I think I’m a little bit in love with how they do nature here. I wish Brits were more inclined to respect the outdoors rather than having parties and leaving their cheap tents, chairs, and litter everywhere. Dartmoor suffered badly over Covid. Some filthy fucker even shat in a burger box and left it for someone else to clean up. This is why we can’t have nice things.

One thing we were pretty excited to find were lady’s slippers. We’d seen them mentioned on an information board yesterday but here they were, right there. Turns out they’re a really rare and very protected orchid. They’re absolutely lovely. Tarrant had to gently coax me away from taking the 30th photo because honestly, how many photos of a flower do you need? Another cool thing that Tarrant spotted were a couple of animals that may or may not have been beavers. No fucking clue mate, I’m not David Attenborough. They might have been muskrats or some other generic fuzzy brown thing that casually hang out in the Alps.

Another thing that exist here are cows. Lots and lots of cows. I do not like cows. The cows have fuck off great big bells around their necks so your alpine stroll will be accompanied with lots of ringing, and sound carries, so you’re not always entirely sure where they are. Are they yonder? Just around the corner? Sneaking up behind me? WHERE ARE YOU, YOU TRICKSY BOVINESES?! Fortunately there’s always another mountain to take your mind off the potential death by trampling. The presence of tiny, less threatening cows didn’t do anything to sooth my shattered nerves because where there are tiny cows there is usually the larger, angrier cow that birthed them.

The majority of the walk was a gentle downhill. We’d planned ten-ish miles but the last couple would have been along the road from Steg to Malbun and we’d already done that on the bus. It was full of roadworks and didn’t look particularly joyous so we fucked it off in favour of a bus back into Malbun so I could apply Käsknöpfle to my facehole. It’s like cheesy noodles, but the noodles are tiny egg dumplings, and it’s served with apple sauce. It was fucking glorious. Tarrant had a couple of gobfuls but she’s not really meant to have dairy so she basically got to watch me shovel the whole plate in like I was raised by wolves. This was very much on my list of foods to consume. Tiny noodley things drowned in cheese is the ultimate comfort food.

We bussed back in Vaduz, stocked up on souvenirs, then sat down outside a bakery that also sold inexpensive booze. This is where we discovered Möhl. We’d seen people drinking it everywhere so we figured we should give it a go and it’s so fucking refreshing! It’s a Swiss apple wine, sort of like cider but a nice one. Beer is nice and all but Möhl just seems to hit the spot a lager can’t. All this Swiss stuff all over the country has whet our appetites for Switzerland which is unfortunate given that you need to hock organs just to exist there. I guess we’ll find out how many organs and if they’ll accept Möhl -soaked livers tomorrow when we head to Zürich for the night.

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Vaduz & Malbun, Liechtenstein

Stayed at: Kloster by b_smart, Schaan

Useful shit to know…

• Bussing around the country is a piece of piss. All the routes are on Google Maps and seem accurate.
• You don’t need to show your Welcome Pass when you get on, you just board and they trust you have a ticket.
• I did see people buying tickets on the bus too so that’s an option if you don’t have a Welcome Pass, or you can use the SBB app.
• The bus network is LIEmobil.
• At this time of year there’s only one bus an hour between Vaduz and Malbun. It looks like there are two an hour in peak season.