The Blithe Traveler: Lunching in Liechtenstein

School's out, let the roadtrip begin!

As someone who gets who becomes quietly queasy being driven to the local Tesco, a road trip through the Austrian, Leichtenstein-ian, Swiss, French, Italian and Slovenian Alps might not exactly be my first choice for a summer holiday. But friends of ours asked us to join them skiing on a wee glacier (<--don't ask, I don't have any idea what "skiing on a glacier" means, other than that apparently there remains snow in the higher elevations despite the fact that we have just passed the Summer Solstice) in France.

So we planned a road trip to get there; it's about a 12 hour drive if you go straight, but, it's through the Alps. Really, going straight just wasn't going to happen. I'd post a map, but the technology seems to be just past my ability right now, so hang on and I'll see what I can do in a few days. The crux of it is that we planned about four days to get there, four days there and about four days to get back home. So, there will be a lot of sights seen, a lot of kilometers driven and quite a few audio books listened to.

We left Brno on Thursday morning and motored steadily to Telfs, Austria, just outside of Innsbruck. It was meant to be a waystation to bigger and brighter destinations, so there isn't much to say about it other than that it was a nice evening, and we slept later than we planned to. Holidays are like that, aren't they?

The plan for Friday was to drive to Liechtenstein for lunch, then on to Grindelswald, in the Swiss Alps where we are spending two night. Liechtenstein is a tiny country, with an area just over 160 km² (about 61.7 square miles), and an estimated population of 35,000. Tom will tell you that it is way bigger than Vatican City, but it is without a doubt, a tiny country. And, in a word, expensive. There is a reason we planned to lunch in Liechtenstein, but no more.

Upon arrival, however, we discovered a fact that made me regret just a bit not staying longer. Liechtenstein has the best loos I have ever seen in the world. Bar none. Pure co-incidence, by the way, that recent posts seem a bit bathroom centric. When I saw these babies, my heart skipped a beat. I could totally live in a country that keeps its bus station bathrooms in this kind of condition:

Just look at the clean stainless steel! When you walk in, the seat is up. Way, way out of the way of little boys who might accidentally spray it. And within easy reach of the female of the species, who prefer not to try and stand while they pee.

Seat down, ready to engage.

Time to wash hands? Up goes the seat, and here's the water! So very clever. And clean!

We stopped for lunch at a neighborhood bistro and blew about a months rent on a rather average sort of lunch. In complete sticker shock at the expense of the place, we crossed the border about as quickly as we arrived, and headed for the Swiss Alps: Grindelwald, to be precise. Here's our hotel: