After crossing the border I spent the next few hours driving through the kind of country one would expect in Switzerland. Between town and villages the roads are good, but through many of them the lorries and cars still have to fit between the horsepower era buildings.
Although the sat nav was set to avoid toll roads, I’ve got ferries and similar vehicle carriers included, hence I arrived at an unexpected toll booth. Long story short, I paid the CHF39 (£30) that the lady asked for and had a train ride through the mountains. And I do mean through as in a long tunnel. I think it saved me about twenty miles of mountain driving.
The trains are similar to those used in the Channel Tunnel shuttle with drive through wagons for cars. The difference is that there is no glass in the windows, low lighting and the track gauge is one metre.
A decent main road continued and I stopped at Schiers shopping centre for a break and for a bit of shopping. There’s a nice little café and the apfelstreusel looked too good to refuse so it became one of my ‘five a day”.
On the road south of Balzers is one of the more heavily guarded Switzerland – Lichtenstein border crossings. It has four flags and a couple of signs. My overnight stop was a couple of hundred yards into Lichtenstein.
Another border crossing has only two flags with signs and others have no more than small signs indicating the border. The signs do no more than indicate that one is entering either Lichtenstein or Switzerland, much as one might see in the UK when crossing a county boundary.
I’d been looking for a proper tobacconist to replenish my stock and found one over the border in Buchs. Having spent a good bit the young lady offered a free gift – a sample of one of their own blends.
Back into Lichtenstein and I had a little wander around Vaduz centre. Apparently it is still a village. I tried to find a place to get a decent shot of the castle but no luck.
After that it was back across the border heading for Basle and France.
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