Vaduz Castle, residence of the Princes of Liechtenstein

may be the most portraited castle complex worldwide, to be seen on each and every souvenir from Liechtenstein, permanent main motive of most stamps of the little principaty, a land they use to call “Laendle”, which means the small, the tiny country.

situated up a hillside, surrounded by mountains with dense green trees and bushes, access by a steep winding mountain road, we find the traditional home seat of the princes of Liechtenstein.

The eldest part of the castle is the „Bergfried“, the old main tower, dating back to the 12th century, the estate itself may well be elder. By the centuries the castle had many different masters, lesser lords of the area, the best known were the counts of Werdenberg, a next door seat on the other, nowadays Swiss side of the Rhine, in the county of St. Gall.

The Princial family holds the castle since buying it in 1712, they were commanders of the Autro-Hungarian army, serving for centuries the Emperor. In 1905 Prince John II renovated and modernized the castle, thus it could became their permanent main residency by1938

It is a good place from there to look down on the little state at your feet, the castle itself, sorry to say, is not open to public, the Prince does not love paparazzi and publicity of that kind, so he in general bars his home from public. To tell the truth, never the less, from time to time they love to accept foreign guests and have them showed around on the castle grounds.

Who wants a more close up impression of how such a castle may look inside may go the a by style similar place, the old “Schattenburg”, hill top castle of the neighbouring Austrian town of Feldkirch in the federal Austrian land of Vorarlberg, some miles to the east. That stronghold not being a princial residence, they love to have guests to the public museum.