What to see in Vaduz, capital of Liechtenstein
Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, is a dynamic town, nestled near the right bank of the Rhine and watched over by the summit of Mount Gaflei (1485 meters). It has just over 5,000 inhabitants and its center essentially revolves around two streets: Stadtle and Aulerstrasse, where most of the monuments are concentrated, including the Rathaus, the town hall, which dominates the square of the same name.
On Stadtle face the Parish Church from the nineteenth century with neo-Gothic architecture, the Government Palace built at the beginning of the 20th century, and the Liechtensteinisches Landsmuseum, the National History Museum which, from prehistory to today, tells everything about the principality, with its fabulous collections of ancient weapons, coins, ethnographic documents, goldsmith’s crafts, sacred art, and various artifacts.
Not far away, housed in a building called Englenderbau, is the Principality’s Art Gallery, which rotates masterpieces belonging to the National Art Collection and those from the private collections of the Princes, with many works by masters from the 16th to the 18th century. In another wing, the same building also houses the Postmuseum des Furstentums Liechtenstein, where visitors are left amazed by the very rich collections of the Principality’s stamps, organized by themes and subjects.
Having covered these monuments and museums, one can only focus on the Vaduz Princely Castle, an architectural element that gives Vaduz a fairy-tale touch: perched on the rock overlooking the town, it shows lines of a noble residence, the result of profound modifications it underwent between the 16th and 17th centuries, despite its original medieval structure dating back to the 13th century. The princes live there regularly, so it is not open to tourists.
