Today we did our longest driving day of this trip, from downtown Salzburg, Austria to Liechtenstein. It’s hard to say “downtown Liechtenstein” because there isn’t much downtown in this tiny country. It’s 17 miles from north to south and 9 miles from east to west, not much bigger than Statin Island. Population: 38,137. It’s the richest country in the world with a per-capital GDP of around $180,000.
But you wouldn’t know it by the first two Liechtenstein-ians we’ve met so far: our hostess and host here at the Airbnb. They advertise this place as a farm Airbnb and that’s exactly what it is, a room on a working farm. They’ve fixed up one floor of their house for Airbnb rentals and live in the other. They raise corn and beets and carrots and raspberries and who knows what. The cows are up in the mountains grazing. They make the milk from the cows in the mountains. They’ll come down for the winter and live off the hay they’ve cut and, I’m guessing, feed corn. I suppose this is peak work season for them, but the tractor was still moving hay bales into the barn at 8:30 PM, shortly after dusk.
The trip itself was uneventful, almost all but the last little bit on autobahns. I let her rip to 90 mph on an unregulated stretch but lots of the time, especially in Austria, the limit was 100 k/h (60 mph). Lots of tunnels and I mean really long tunnels. But outside the tunnels the scenery was uniformly beautiful. Even when going through a city like Innsbruck, the Alps dominated the view. It was as if we were back on the Glacial Express but at a much higher speed.
We missed the Glacial Express’s white linen table service at lunch time. Instead, we stopped at the kissin’ cousin of the Kennebunkport rest stop on the Maine Turnpike. We split a tomato and cheese sandwich and a bag of chips. The one difference: it costs 50 cents to pee in Austria.
We didn’t get a very early start (10:30 AM), laying about in bed after our 20,000-step day yesterday. Before departing, we hit the vegetable stand in the next door court yard for some fruit and veggies. Traffic was moderate with lots of trucks and several stop-and-go sections. We stopped for lunch, ice cream and gas (about $7 per gallon). We arrived at the farm outside the capitol, Vaduz (population 5,000 on a warm day), about 4:30 PM.
This place is huge. We get lost trying to find our way around. There’s the master bedroom, the double bunk bedroom, a dining room, living room, kitchen with dinette and one and a half bathroom. There are two outside decks. The Airbnb in Salzburg would easily fit in the kitchen/dinette area.
After settling in, we visited the farmer’s produce shopping in the barn. We purchased a veal steak prepared for cordon bleu, eggs and some other stuff. I made a mock cordon bleu with what we had and added to it the potatoes and yellow beans we’d purchased earlier in Salzburg. Our first home cooked meal.
The scenery here is alpine like we’ve become accustomed to but we’re looking forward to spending the day tomorrow exploring a small town and rural living. Ang getting to figure out what this tiny principality called Liechtenstein is all about.
