Weekend adventures: (another!) ROOOADTRIP!

Weekend Adventures: Roadtrip to Austria, Liechtenstein and Basel, Switzerland

(April 21 - 25, 2011)

Dave Gold came to Geneva for a visit from NYC and we decided to make an adventure out of the trip and hit two more countries on my list, Austria and Liechtenstein. Dave came bearing NY bagels (thanks Dave!), a great travel attitude (despite Preston and I sharing a lot of funny "Preston and his roadtrip antics" stories) and a celebratory spirit (the night of his arrival was his birthday). 

16 years ago to the day, Dave stayed with Preston at Colgate
to see if he'd go there for college-- Preston was obviously a great host!

A recreation of the flaming shot -- no hands
were burned in this alcohol consumption!

Sometime ask Preston about the flight attendant that thought
he was in the military thanks to this haircut!

We headed off the Thursday afternoon of Easter weekend to Liechtenstein, about a four and a half hour drive from Geneva. 

The Principality of Liechtenstein is the only country to lie entirely in the Alps and is a doubly landlocked country. What's that, you ask? Well, it's landlocked by both Switzerland to the west and Austria to the east, also landlocked countries. Another fun fact? It's the only German-speaking country to not share a border with Germany. Preston especially loved that fact since it was yet another destination wherein he could practice his German. 

Dave and Preston in Vaduz city center

We stayed in Vaduz, Liechtenstein's capitol. The entire country only has about 35,000 residents (and I complain Geneva is small!) and the capital is small ... really small!  

We drove to a vista above the Vaduz castle and decided to take a walk to take in the views. Our first stop was the castle. We were extremely disappointed to find out it's a private residence! Turns out the reigning prince of Liechtenstein and the Liechtenstein princely family live there. We saw a little boy riding his bike in the driveway, a prince perhaps? 

The views from within the castle must be amazing as it was breathtaking just walking around it. Here is a photo of Preston and I (very pregnant!) taking it all in. 

Your bloggers in Vaduz, Liechtenstein

The valley below Vaduz

We stayed the night in the center of town (which could very easily be walked in its entirety in 10 minutes) and I marveled at the size and scope of their souvenir shop despite being such a tiny country. My mug, shot glass, placemat and magnet searches were almost too easy here!

Don't mind if we do. We brought a good bottle back
from the trip -- waiting for Baby Walls' arrival to open it up.

After a yummy breakfast (with great service, I might add) in the center of town, we waited for Dave to buy chocolate for souvenirs (we knew Switzerland would be shut down on Easter Sunday -- don't tell his recipients it was Swiss chocolate from Liechtenstein!) and got back on the road and headed to Austria.

Despite Preston taking me (literally) all over the entire island of Cyprus 10 days earlier by accident (and having a good story to tell for it), sure enough, Dave and I shouldn't have been surprised when we drove "the scenic route" which came to a dead-end about 45 minutes out of our way. That's right, 45 minutes out and 45 minutes back with a (still!) very pregnant wife riding shotgun! Needless to say TomTom wasn't pleased with Preston's act of defiance either!

(head scratch), "Oooops!"

As we circled back we spotted a covered bridge that Preston wanted to drive through. It was actually very charming.

We finally made it to our hotel in the charming Austrian village of Stubai, just outside Innsbruck, the site of the 1980 Winter Olympic Games. Here is a picture of us from our balcony. "The hills are alive ... !"

We took a walk before dinner to admire our little spot in Austria. 

We had a nice dinner at the hotel and Preston and Dave stayed out to have some more cocktails while Baby Walls and I caught up on sleep. The next morning we drove to a nearby ski village and the boys headed out for some spring skiing.

Doesn't look to snow-covered to me, but they did find trails!

After the boys came off the mountain we had lunch together in town. 

Lunch view

We continued our road trip weekend by spending Saturday night (post swim at our next hotel!) in Basel, Switzerland visiting two of Dave's friends, a fabulously fun couple, Kristen and Joss. Kristen and Joss are a few weeks away from getting married AND Kristen is from New Jersey; we had A LOT to talk about! We had a delicious dinner of traditional German food (yes, in Switzerland) including yummy pretzels.

The next morning we headed out early to get Dave to the airport to fly home to New York. Thanks for visiting, Dave Gold, it was a great roadtrip weekend.

*******

Weekend Roadtrip to Austria, Liechtenstein and Basel, Switzerland

Dates: 

Thursday – Monday, April 21 - 25, 2011

Where we stayed:

Liechtenstein  Residence Hotel

Austria Hotel Stubai (they don't have a web site!)

Basel, Switzerland Radisson Blu Hotel, Basel

The Walls' Review:

Hotel review: All three hotels were great. Residence Hotel in Liechtenstein was right in the center of town and very comfortable. The Hotel Stubai was a charming ski lodge-type hotel run by an Austrian family. Dave was a little scared with the hotel keeper's two-year old granddaughter riding her bike around the hotel practically aiming for the guests but it was pretty cute! And the Radisson Blu in Basel was wonderful -- also in a great location, it has an amazing pool and the room was very modern.