How To Visit Liechtenstein from Switzerland

During our train trip last month, we visited Switzerland for the first time — our last major Western/Central European country to check off the list! But as we planned for our Switzerland visit, we couldn’t help but notice that the country of Liechtenstein wasn’t that far away.

In a typical move for us, we thought, “When in the neighborhood!” (which has previously resulted in visits to both Andorra and Luxembourg), so one day we set off to take a day trip to Liechtenstein from Switzerland. From Zürich, where we were staying, it wasn’t too difficult nor too long of a day, so I recommend it if this is the type of thing you’re interested in.

Here’s everything you need to know if you want to plan your own visit to Liechtenstein from Switzerland.

Step 1: Take the train to Sargans, Switzerland

Let’s assume your starting point is one of the six biggest cities in Switzerland: Zürich, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne, Bern, or Lucerne. If you’re planning to visit the capital of Liechtenstein, Vaduz — and I feel like that’s a pretty obvious choice for your Liechtenstein trip — you’ll need to take a train from your starting city to Sargans, Switzerland.

Depending on where you’re coming from, your trip to Sargans may be longer or shorter. From Zürich, it was a quick 55-minute high-speed train ride that hugged the southern shore of the Zürichsee and then the even more beautiful Walensee. From Geneva or Lausanne, though, you’re looking at a minimum of 3.5 hours with at least one train connection just to get to Sargans, so I recommend not trying to do this as a day trip (unless you want to spend like 8 hours commuting in one day). Our train ticket from Zürich to Sargans cost about 21 CHF (Swiss Francs), or about $26 USD per person, one way, booked about two days in advance.

Sargans is a small town with a population of only about 6,000 people. When you arrive at Sargans Hauptbahnhof, you’ll probably notice there isn’t much around — other than mountains, which is pretty cool! But you don’t have to go far for the next step, which is catching the bus to Liechtenstein, basically right in front of the train station.

Step 2: Take the 11 or 12E Bus to Vaduz, Liechtenstein

When you exit the train station, walk directly across the small “plaza” in front of it. This is where the bus will arrive. You’ll want to take either the 11 or the 12E; the “E” stands for Express I think, so it will get you to Vaduz slightly faster.

Both Switzerland and Liechtenstein use Swiss Francs as their currency, but there’s no need to use cash to pay for your bus ticket. You can pay the approximately 5 CHF/$6 USD one-way with a credit card on board. The 11 bus runs about every 30 minutes; the 12E runs about every hour.

Once you’re onboard the bus, you’ll pass through a few smaller towns, Balzers and Triesen, on your way to Vaduz. I recommend getting off at the last stop in Vaduz, the Vaduz/Post stop — it will get you closest to the center of this tiny capital city!

What To Do in Vaduz, Liechtenstein

Unsurprisingly, Vaduz won’t take you very long to visit. A good place to start is the Vaduz Rathaus, or town hall, and Marktplatz. This is where you’ll find the “commercial center” of the city (if you want to call it that) and the most tourist infrastructure, such as shops, restaurants, and restrooms. When we went into the souvenir shops, I was surprised by how many people were there — but it turns out there are a lot of tour groups that come to Liechtenstein on charter buses as day trips from other cities. As we talked to the cashier in the shop and asked him where we should go next, he was surprised to find out that we were there on our own rather than with a tour. So it makes me think this is definitely the more unique way to visit Vaduz… but you know, that’s the way I like it. 🙂

Outside the Rathaus, we heard music coming from nearby. And I just spent five minutes scouring Google Maps, and I can’t find exactly where we ended up — but we followed the sound to a small indoor stage and found ourselves at a high school band competition. We grabbed some beer (and gluten-free cider for me) that was onsale in the venue, and made our way to the top floor to relax with a drink while listening to the music. Most random experience ever!

After you’ve explored the Marktplatz area, it’s time to check out Vaduz’s most famous site: Schloss Vaduz, or Vaduz Castle. But before you make the trek, there are a couple of things you should know. First, it should take you about 20-30 minutes to get to the top, though it’s a little bit steep at points. And second, you can’t actually get that close to the castle. 

The second part is definitely a bit disappointing. But it turns out that Liechtenstein’s royal family still uses the castle as their residence, so it’s almost always closed to the general public. The only exception is on August 15, Liechtenstein’s national day, when the castle grounds are open to all and the Prince of Liechtenstein throws a huge party! But we were there on May 31, and alas the castle gates were closed. So once you get up there, you basically just have to turn around.

With that being said, I still recommend the hike. You get some great views of the mountains and valley below! Just keep your expectations in check — know in advance that you won’t really be able to see the castle from the end of the hike. But there’s a chance you might be able to get a great view if you keep wandering around and hiking farther upward (but it was too hot for that so we didn’t).

Optional stop: Balzers, Liechtenstein

While on the bus to Vaduz, we passed through another Liechtensteiner town called Balzers. It also has a castle, Burg Gutenberg — and rather than being perched on the side of a mountain, it sits on its own hill in the middle of the town. So instead of heading back to Sargans when we were done in Vaduz, we decided to make a stop in Balzers and check out Burg Gutenberg. If you want to do the same, I recommend getting off at the Balzers/Mälsnerdorf stop.

It’s a much shorter hike to the top than in Vaduz, and I think the payoff is a lot better! There are no trees for shade though, so if it’s a sunny day don’t forget your sunscreen. Again, you’ll get a pretty good view of the town below and the mountains, but this time it’s like a 360° view.

After hiking back down, we set out to find the best view of Burg Gutenberg in Balzers.

All these photos you see of the castles in Liechtenstein are taken from angles that make them look so impressive, but they’re clearly taken by people with 1. professional cameras and 2. a way to obtain vantage points that are not so achievable for the average person. When you look up at Burg Gutenberg or Schloss Vaduz, what you can see of the building at any given moment isn’t necessarily super impressive. But from certain perspectives, where you can see all the layers of the castle at the same time, they look so cool. We had some time to kill before going back to Sargans, so we wandered through the fields and neighborhoods of Balzers while gazing up at Burg Gutenberg.

It was still pretty far away and it looks way worse on my iPhone 13 camera than it did in real life but I think this is where you’ll find the best shot of Burg Gutenberg for normies. If you have a zoom lens, it will probably be even better! Also, I trust that you all aren’t going to swarm this random street in front of the Coral Farm pet store to the point that all the locals get annoyed. I know millions of you are reading this super secret tip at any given moment!

Liechtenstein back to Switzerland

When you’re ready to head back to Switzerland, just do everything you did to get to Liechtenstein, but in reverse.

Start by grabbing the 11 or 12E bus from Vaduz or Balzers back to Sargans, Switzerland. We actually didn’t book our train from Sargans back to Zürich until we were on the bus from Balzers — and I’m glad we didn’t, because then we weren’t rushed exploring either city in Liechtenstein at all. There were so many trains from Sargans that stopped in Zürich that we didn’t have to worry about not being able to find one at the time we wanted. Booking 25 minutes in advance was a bit pricy, at 34 CHF/$42 USD, but for us the extra cost was worth it to have complete time freedom during our day.

If you’re going somewhere else in Switzerland, like somewhere farther away, you may want to book in advance to ensure availability — you don’t want to get stranded in Sargans!

Visiting Liechtenstein from Switzerland: Is It Worth It?

A lot of people might not think that spending about 4 hours round-trip commuting to visit a microcountry is worth it.

But I’m not one of those people!

I want to visit everywhere. That includes massive countries like Australia (which I hope is going to be soon!) and tiny countries like Liechtenstein. I don’t know a single other person who’s been there besides us, and I actually learned a lot about the country during our short visit. We hiked to two castles, drank beer while watching a high school band competition, and encountered lots of super nice people who were curious about us and what we were doing in Liechtenstein.

Plus, the scenery was so beautiful — the same rolling green hills and blue mountains of Switzerland and Austria, but with wayyyy fewer tourists. Which makes it feel like it’s still a little bit undiscovered. And that’s one of my favorite things to find when I travel. 🙂

 

Would you ever visit Liechtenstein on a trip to Switzerland, or do you think I’m crazy for spending a day on this? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

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