Between Family Visits - Liechtenstein and Switzerland
After our family visit with my cousin and headed south instead of East, as Mark wanted to see Liechtenstein and I thought he should see a small part of Switzerland since we were so close.
We decided on visiting Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein and to spend our time there as we had the afternoon before driving to Switzerland.
The main street of Vaduz was maybe a kilometer if that, so sightseeing around the city wouldn’t take more than a 1/2 day.
First thing we set out to do was to visit the tourist office to a) pick up postcards and b) to get our passports stamped. The cost for the passport stamp was 3 Euro, we thought an inexpensive souvenir of this country.
As the weather was still warm, we had lunch outside and given many of the restaurants were closed, we had limited options, so we headed to an Italian restaurant.
From there we made our way to the City Hall, visited the Cathedral, opted not to visit the castle (you can only visit the grounds due to the fact royalty still live there) and had an ice cream before setting off to Zurich, our next destination which was about a 2 hour drive.
Arrived in the evening and checked into the Intercontinental hotel for our stay here.
Like other cities around Europe, Zurich also had a free walking tour which we took advantage of as it always provides us with an overview of the city and the country. The tour lasted about 2 hours, and this had to be one of the bigger size groups we have been on, approximately 50 of us.
The history was interesting enough with guilds ruling this area, until Napoleon came along, who then introduced voting to the population.
Our guide then took us to see some bunkers and apparently Switzerland had more bunkers than the U.S and Russia during the cold war. They could accommodate up to 3M people during these times.
After our 2-hour tour, we wandered around Zurich enjoying the city, with a stop for lunch/dinner at a beer hall.
More wandering around the city and then finally back to the hotel. A full day of walking around Zurich which gave us a good sense of this city.
The following day we met our friends Tone and Morton for lunch who we have known since Xiamen. They were originally from Norway and after Xiamen, they now live in Zurich.
It was great to catch up with them, whether it was about our lives in China their new life in Switzerland, which they love or discussing where everyone we ended up.
We were debating on going to Lucerne, as Mark has never been to Switzerland and I recall it to be very nice with bridges decorated with flowers and beautiful architecture. Tone and Morton suggested Schaffhausen which wouldn’t be overrun by tourists like Lucerne and there are waterfalls not far from the city center.
Awhile later, we said our goodbyes. it was so good to see them again and thankful that Tone and Morton were able to take time from his busy schedules to meet with us.
As Switzerland is not that big, we were able to get to Schauffhassen by 2 pm. We did the waterfalls first taking photos of the scenery when an elderly Chinese man decides to nudge me to get out of his photo. Since I was there before him and just taking my last shot, I told him to wait a minute in Chinese. He backed down. I’m always amazed when tourists take photos, they’re manners seem to be nonexistent.
We did the walk around the falls, before driving to the center. A good part of this old city is a car free zone so walk round was nice and easy.
We hiked up to the fortress to get some views of the old town which is always nice to see a different point of view.
After a few hours we left to begin our trip to Tettnang.