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Stamps and Wine in Liechtenstein
The double landlocked country
During the tail end of the great family European tour, I was able to convince everyone to stop in the small, double landlocked country of Liechtenstein. It was definitely a selfish request to squeeze in another country, but I believe it was worthwhile and we definitely had some fun viewing the legendary stamp collection and tasting the local wine.
For this experience, we explored the capital of Liechtenstein – Vaduz. By the way, it took me a few to realize it is pronounced “va-doots” 🙂
Our journey to Vaduz started from Zürich in Switzerland. Unfortunately Vaduz is not accessible directly by train like some other Liechtenstein cities. However, it’s not a huge problem. All we needed to do was take a train from Zürich to the east municipality of Sargans (I marked the bus station, or banhof, on the map). From here Vaduz is just a 30min bus ride away, if that. Liechtenstein is also in the Schengen area, so no special requirements to cross over from Switzerland.
Stamp game strong
Getting off the bus put us right next to the information center and postal stamp museum in Vaduz. First things first, it was time to get that Liechtenstein passport stamp, before heading into the postal stamp museum. Lots of stamps. I was happy to see Liechtenstein would stamp the actual passport for a small fee, unlike when Mila and I went to Monaco for the same thing. After we all got passport stamps, we walked right next door into the museum.
The single statement that grabbed my attention when reading through the history of Liechtenstein stamps was that up until about 1970s, stamp sales made up more than 20% of the national income per year. That is simply insane, and I had to know more.
Instead of me just listing out facts, this is the link to their website, which are the exact articles I read at the museum:
The museum, although small, was literally packed full with their stamps and postal collector items spanning the country’s history. The time and artistic vision put into each year’s stamps is noticeable now to me. I remember on the flight back to the United States, I sat next to an older Swiss woman, Theresa, who, after I showed the stamps I purchased, further explained how Liechtenstein would bring in renown artists to capture the time in history on the stamps. What a cool collector item and piece of history to have.
I found the white wine
Next on the short Vaduz tour was reaching the Cellars of the Prince of Liechtenstein. Unfortunately, he was not there, but we did end up finding a tasty white we purchased!
After walking through a small vineyard and spotting some big ‘ole snails, we came up upon a salmon colored building with the title “Hofkellerei.” Apparently we were late for the tasting (it was difficult to find the time online), but the host led us right to a table in the cellar! I thought it was funny that in this small country, we found ourselves in a cellar with two other families of which I’m pretty sure were both American too.
The wine tasting was excellent. Lichtenstein is not some top tier wine country by any means, but personally, one of the white wines I tried was the best I’ve had. It may just show my lack of depth in understanding wine, but what’s good is good. It was a Pinot Noir called “Blanc de Noir” that was not too dry with strawberry notes. It hit, and to show our true class we all shared a bottle on the train ride back drinking out of paper espresso cups.
We did it
I started off proposing Liechtenstein to simply check off another country, but spending time in Vaduz gave me a newfound appreciation for postage stamps, and a top 3 favorite white wine. What a combo. I hope my family enjoyed it as much as I did, and hey, now we can all say we drank wine in the cellars of the Prince!
-ML
Recap of Places
Check out the MAP for links!
- Postmuseum Vaduz (Postage Stamp Museum)
- Cellars of the Prince of Liechtenstein
Michael Lakus
IT professional, athlete, musician, ponderer of many things... Born and raised in Florida, I began traveling internationally after college. I created this site primarily to remind myself of where I've been and to share my experiences on traveling with a quirky, stress-free, travel attitude.
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