John Andrews on city life in Liechtenstein.
The speed limit on Swiss motorways is 120km per hour and, if you’re travelling from northern Italy to southern Germany through Switzerland at exactly that speed, you’ll spend a scant ten minutes traversing the entire western border of the sovereign Principality of Liechtenstein. Glance to your right about halfway up the country and you’ll notice a fairy-tale castle perched on a hill, overlooking a small town. This town, as well as being the geographical centre of the tiny, landlocked state (the fourth smallest in Europe), is also its political focal point: welcome to Vaduz. It was founded in the 13th century, and both it and its country had their credentials strengthened some time later by a King Wenceslas (no, not that one). In those days — long before the involvement of the family who were to give the country its name — the region was part of the Holy Roman Empire, and since then Liechtenstein, governed from Vaduz, has developed through a succession of allegiances.
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