The Blooming Borough of Liechtenstein

 “I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.” ― William Shakespeare

Rothrist proved to be a serene place to retire for the day; we regained our energies and looked forward to journeying ahead. The tour coordinator was a seventy five year old retired banker who was a world of knowledge and wisdom. The guide was a young lady who maintained the records and tried to keep everything going according to the planned schedule. We started from Rothrist early in the morning to reach Rhine waterfall which is one of the largest waterfalls in Europe. It is situated between Neuhausen and Laufenuhwiesen, in Northern Switzerland. They say it was formed during the ice age and has remained a scenic place. It has been a matter of dispute when environmentalists fought against the government, which wanted to use the potential fall of water for power generation. It remains a tourist spot even today with crystal clear water where one can see fishes in the upper layers of the sparkling clean water. There are boats and canoes that ferry one to the raging waterfall. The canoes are for the adventurous and seasoned swimmers, while the boats take one around the river and drop them at the entrance of the waterfall. There are steep steps carved through the rocks that lead one into the waterfall. The steep stairs also lead one above the waterfall to a splendid viewpoint of the majestic waterfall and the Castle of Worth. One can also walk around the water body through the beautiful gardens and climb up the stairs to view the panorama, if they fear boating in the furious outburst of water.

We were then ushered back for a two hours drive to the sixth smallest country in Europe named Liechtenstein. There are trains that pass through the country, but we were unsure whether the trains halted here in the capital city of Liechtenstein named Vaduz, which is the second largest cities in Liechtenstein, the first one being Schaan. Liechtenstein is landlocked by Germany on one side and Switzerland on the other, since the land is locked for both the countries at the point of contact it is called ‘double landlocked’.  Liechtenstein does not have an Army of its own. We were informed that Vaduz was a rich village, stinking rich as the people were not only born rich, but also persisted being wealthy owing to their neutrality, economy, business and trade policies. They are proud owners of small and large businesses and have to pay lower taxes. The Swiss Franc is the official currency, but the national language is a dialect of German. Vaduz bears the royal castle of the prince and many large bungalows depicting modern architecture, it is definitely affluent in its resources. It has a population of a mere five thousand people, which is equivalent to the population in any small Indian locality. The Coach dropped us at the bus stop to move to a place where all the buses were parked. The best way to see the city was to walk around as it was very small. The country of Liechtenstein can be covered in half an hour by car. It is around 25km long and 12km wide with many cities.

The guide spoke about mansions, castles, and above all an empire that believes in peace.

We began to walk around the city after having a packed Indian lunch. We stalked into a forlorn shop, which was one of the few shops open during the lunch time to find a young man amongst many things for sale. The shop was a part of his house, which was a beautiful cottage right on the streets. Behind his house lay the beautiful snow covered Alpine zenith. In fact, we could view the Alpine crests from every corner of the streets we walked on. It was peak afternoon and the village seemed to be in slumber. It was a parish, impeccably clean, its pavements were spotless, but the shops had rolled down their shutters. We tried to look around in the shop for the oddity; it was an inquisitiveness to know their way of life, their merchandise and of course their value.

The shop had tiny musical instruments like the xylophone, games and Fengshui items like the bells that were maroon coloured with Chinese sayings inscribed on them.  We told the man that we had Euros and not Francs. He answered in English saying that it did not matter. We looked at the bells; they were small and very large ones. My sister picked a bell, gently shook it, and asked the man artlessly, “What do you do with these bells”? She actually meant that the bells are rung after the prayers in an Indian household, but in Vaduz she wondered whether they were mere relics or they had a special way of using it. The shopkeeper smiled and looked at the bell, he then held it in his hands and said, ‘one can, one can use, one can use this bell to call the family for dinner, one can ring the bell to convey the family that the dinner is ready”. He then smiled at us. We exclaimed that it was a melodious and wonderful way of informing the family that it was dinner time. We bought a few things, including   a Xylophone. The shopkeeper played a melodious tune on the Xylophone with a constant smile on his face. We in turn told him about the Indian octave and played that as he listened to it courteously. We paid him in Euros. He said there was no difference in the value, but he valued the toys in Swiss Francs and paid us the difference in Swiss Francs as the Euro is a little more in price than the Swiss Franc. We left the shop with a smile in reciprocal to the shopkeeper’s smile. We went around the city and witnessed the shops opening slowly, and soon the place regained its   dynamism.

We went around shopping a few more things in the mall like areas, but what we valued the most was the peace, the space, and the breathtaking mountain peaks in between the houses and the streets. As the coach rolled back into the streets towards Austria, we peered to have one last look at the prosperous municipality; it definitely seemed to have been a journey to the heavenly abodes.