One Prince, No Paupers

Last year Liechtenstein’s ruling prince, Hans Adam II, told his subjects that if they really wanted to do away with the centuries-old monarchy, he’d pack the family jewels and leave. Or something like that. Seems every time he’s turned around in the eight years since inheriting the tiny principality from his father, the late and very popular Franz Joseph II, he’s been criticized.

First, Hans Adam (full title: His Serene Highness Prince Johannes Adam von und zu Liechtenstein) found himself being attacked for the amount of power bequeathed him, then for having the temerity to wield it. Since 1921 Liechtenstein has been a constitutional monarchy, with power shared about equally by the prince and the people. But Hans Adam is that rarest of all monarchs, a progressive, and his successful campaign to bring Liechtenstein into the European Economic Area (EEA) put him at odds with conservative members of Parliament, then a judge, and before he knew it he was standing before 2,000 Liechtensteiners and hearing jeers.

All that has blown over by the time I arrive here in early May. The prince is in his castle, a mighty fortress-like edifice perched on a bluff above the storybook capital of Vaduz, and all is right with his world. The people haven’t asked him to leave, not yet anyway, and locals shrug off his comments to royal pique. “He was not feeling very loved, I guess,” says the woman who stamps passports in the Vaduz tourist office. “I don’t think many people here want to see major changes.”

Nor, in their right minds, should they. Liechtenstein, a 62-square-mile lush mini-state between Switzerland and Austria, is as close to Camelot as nonfiction characters are likely to get. It may have one of the highest costs of living in Europe, but its 31,000 citizens also enjoy the highest per-capita income in Europe and the continent’s lowest individual tax burden. Liechtenstein is well known as a tax haven and a significant portion of national income flows from this status. In turn, because of the revenues generated from the anonymous holding companies that claim Liechtenstein as their corporate address, workers here get to keep about 87% of what they earn. And they live in a virtual paradise.

Separated from Switzerland by the Rhine River, Liechtenstein is about two-thirds in and one-third out of the Alps. The western side, or the Low Country, is a narrow strip of land in the Rhine Valley, a rolling carpet of meadows, orchards, vineyards and villages. On the east, the Upper Country, are the western foothills of the central Alps, rising quickly under an evergreen cloak to snow-clad peaks at elevations above 8,000 feet. The mountains are latticed with hundreds of miles of marked hiking trails, and knowledgeable European skiers refer to Malbun, Liechtenstein’s highest community, as “the other St. Moritz.”

On my first day here, driving an hour and a half from the nearest airport in Zurich, Switzerland, my plan is to get a room and sleep off the jet lag of a six-hour flight from New York. But as I cross the Rhine, drive through Vaduz and follow the road toward Malbun, I might as well be a kid trying to go back to sleep on Christmas morning. It is a perfect, 70-degree spring afternoon, and swooping gracefully across the cloudless sky is what appears to be a lazy scattering of birds, giant hawks with wings that span 30 feet or more in all colors of the rainbow. As I continue up the narrow two-lane road, one of the birds suddenly appears at eye level about 300 yards off the mountain and 2,000 feet above the valley floor. It’s a hang-glider with canary-yellow wings, and the pilot is using the air current curling up from the valley to keep himself aloft.

The higher I go up the mountain, the more of these Icarus birds I see. Men and women floating under kite wings or para-sails, or inside fiberglass gliders. They’re as common a spring sight, I’m told, as wildflowers. For the less daring, an even better idea is to take the Malbun-Sareis chairlift to the summit restaurant, Sareiserjoch, and from its terrace survey all that Hans Adam rules. From this map maker’s view of Liechtenstein, what you see is a country small enough in acreage to fit within the city limits of Washington, D.C., yet one with enormous topographic range, architectural variety and history.

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This is land first settled in the Neolithic age, colonized about 800 BC and brought into the Holy Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus Caesar. Christianity migrated north around the 4th century, shortly after which Germanic tribes moving south drove the Romans out, making what is today’s Liechtenstein part of the German Dukedom.

It became an official principality in 1719 and a sovereign country in 1866. Two years later Liechtenstein’s army was disbanded, and there hasn’t been a need for one since. Today Liechtenstein’s population is overwhelmingly ethnic German and Roman Catholic. German is the official language, though English is common. But since the early 1920s, when it became a constitutional monarchy and signed a customs agreement with Switzerland, its roots have grown westward.

You pass through border stations between Austria and Liechtenstein, but there are only bridges over the Rhine between Liechtenstein and Switzerland. The Swiss franc is Liechtenstein’s currency, and judging by the shop displays in Vaduz, Swiss watches and Swiss Army knives are its leading souvenir items.

To most Americans, Liechtenstein, if they’ve heard of it at all, is the question to a “Jeopardy!” answer: “Of Europe’s smallest countries, the one farthest north.” (For the record, the others are Monaco on the French Riviera, San Marino, surrounded by Italy near the Adriatic Sea, and Andorra in the Pyrenees between France and Spain.) Even to most world travelers, Liechtenstein is a place they’ve never visited. It’s not on a main road to anywhere. To those who do visit, it’s a bus stop on a tour of castles or alpine resorts, usually starting in Zurich. Just enough time to drop by the Vaduz tourist office, as virtually every tourist does, to get that rare stamp in their passports. The country is famous among philatelists, who come from around the world to strain their eyes in Liechtenstein’s Postage Stamp Museum.

True, if you’re not into stamps, or skiing, hiking, biking, sightseeing or relaxing, there’s not a lot to do in Liechtenstein. Hans Adam’s 12th century castle houses one of Europe’s finest private art collections, but it’s closed to the public. There’s a national museum (currently closed for renovation), Roman excavations, community museums and a restored 16th century farmhouse to visit.

But for travelers looking for a two- or three-day respite, Liechtenstein is hard to beat. Especially in the spring, summer and fall, when short-sleeve weather prevails.

I stayed at the Martha Buhler Inn, a neat, three-story hotel in Triesenberg, halfway up the road to Malbun, for less than $65 a night. For that, I got two double beds, a bath, a balcony and a panoramic view of the mountain falling away to the Rhine Valley, with Vaduz to the north and ancient Balzers, with its soaring Gutenberg Castle, on the south and the Swiss Alps rising majestically above it all. The interior of the castle is closed to the public, but there long-range plans to make it a museum.

Liechtenstein has many small inns, both in the mountains and the valley, plus pensions and private rooms for budget-watching young travelers. And at the other end is the luxuriously cozy Parkhotel Sonnenhof. Plan to spend upward of $150 per night at the Park.

Fine dining is a native ritual, and the country’s 76 restaurants offer every kind of ambience, from sidewalk cafe to medieval. The Gasthof Lowen, Liechtenstein’s oldest inn, dates from 1380. Across the street from the Lowen in Vaduz is Prince Hans Adam’s private vineyard and the elegantly rustic Restaurant Torkel.

My bill for a fixed-price French meal, plus a bottle of the prince’s own pinot noir, came to $61. The prince’s wine, by the way, is very good, but you won’t find it on the most extensive wine lists outside of Liechtenstein. His vineyard is so small there’s just enough to go around in Camelot.

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Mathews is a Newsday film critic.

GUIDEBOOK / Liechtenstein

Locations

Getting there: Swissair flies nonstop between LAX to Zurich. American flies, with one stop but no change of planes. Advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at $1,106.

Where to stay: Hotel Real, Stadtle 21, 9490 Vaduz; from the United States, telephone 011-41-75-232-2222, fax 011-41-75-232-0891. Small hotel in the middle of town. Rates: double, including breakfast, about $140 to $160.

Martha Buhler Inn, Sennwis 15, 9497 Triesenberg; tel. 011-41-75-237-4777, fax 011-41-75-237-4770. Rates: $65, not including breakfast.

Parkhotel Sonnenhof, Marcestrassen 29, 9490 Vaduz; tel. 011-41-75-232-1192, fax 011-41-75-232-0053. An elegant Relais & Cha^teaux hotel, just outside Vaduz, on the edge of the woods. Rates: double, including breakfast, $235 to $300.

Where to eat: Gasthof Lowen, Herrengasse 35, Vaduz; local telephone 232-0066, fax 011-41-75-232-0458. Entrees: $22 to $40.

Restaurant Torkel, Hintegrafe 9, Vaduz; tel. 011-41-75-232-4410, fax 011-41-75-232-4405. Four-course dinner for one, with wine, $40 to $80.

For more information: Switzerland Tourism, 222 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 1570, El Segundo, CA 90245; tel. (310) 640-8900, fax (310) 335-5982.