Feldkirch, Austria – This is Where You Stop between Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Feldkirch, Austria – This is Where You Stop between Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Feldkirch is a no-name little town in Austria. You have no business of going there unless you find yourself scratching your head and wondering how will you do Switzerland and Liechtenstein in a limited amount of time and under a shoestring budget.

Living in Central Europe is great. Where else can you make a very last-minute decision to go to another country, not one but three other countries, a few hours before the actual trip?

 I was sitting in my office on a Friday afternoon and wondering about my plan for the long weekend due to St. Wenceslas national holiday on Monday. I didn’t have any specific plan and somehow couldn’t bear the thought of spending three days doing nothing in Prague. Shuffling through my list of remaining countries in Europe that I hadn’t been yet, evaluating the logistics and estimating the time, I felt that combining Switzerland and Liechtenstein into a long weekend would be the best option. For those who are new to the blog, about March-April of this year, I added a new item to my bucket list: traveling to every country in Europe. Visit this link to check out all the stories about my “checklisting” Europe.

Why and when would you stay in Feldkirch?

there are only 50 countries in Europe, but when you want to see each one of them, you’ve got a lot of work to do. I had the same amount of vacation and public holidays like everybody, so I need to travel more often and be smart with the logistics. The only low-cost, last-minute and logistically optimal option was to go by bus from Prague to Zurich, Switzerland during the night; take a short train in the morning from Zurich to Feldkirch, an Austrian city bordering Liechtenstein; and visit Liechtenstein from Austria. The accommodation was much cheaper in Feldkirch than in Liechtenstein, a country with a higher living standard. I worked out the logistic by 17:00, then I hurried to the bus station at Florenc to buy a return bus ticket from StudentAgency, a popular travel/transport company in the Czech Republic and rushed home to get ready for my trip. I had barely enough time to pack, ate a quick dinner, bought some snacks for the journey and went back to the bus station.

The train from Zurich to Feldkirch

The 12-hour overnight bus ride from Prague to Zurich took  all my strength. You can’t sleep in a long-distance bus no matter how well-equipped the bus is, not even when no one around is snoring. Luckily enough, the Zurich bus stop was near the train station, so I didn’t have to walk around a new city in a zombie state searching for direction. I didn’t have to wait long for the train to Feldkirch.

Zurich train station

(Photo Credit: melcasey_ Flickr via Compfight cc)

I wanted to get to Feldkirch so badly, find my accommodation, check into my room, get a good sleep and then later a good shower. I wanted to avoid people on the train and hoped I would find an empty seat – hey you would to if you’ve just pulled out of a 12-hour trip, and didn’t brush your teeth or wash your face. Fate didn’t have it. The train was full. I sat in the middle between two well-dressed Swiss. Across from me were two other Swiss and an older Indian woman. Couldn’t slouch nor lean against the window to get some sleep, I looked out the window to behold the Swiss landscape. To my right is the mountain, to my left is Lake Zurich, and occasionally small wooden houses and lazy cows got into the view. This is Switzerland; everything looks perfectly clean and tidy–including dirty mud. Once the train went past Sargaan and headed closer to Austria, the scenery became less and less interesting. The passenger next to me got off at Sargaan so I moved to his seat by the window, covered my face with my jacket and dozed off. The Indian woman shared the same sentiment and started slouching on the seat in front of me.

In Feldkirch

One of the main streets in Feldkirch

I was delighted to find out about Feldkirch given I had less than three hours to research  and plan for this trip. The mountain city has a cozy feel. It’s not spectacular but lovely, and I was glad that I chose it over the industrial, ugly and expensive Schaan in Liechtenstein where I planned to stay originally.

On Saturday, there was a flea market at the end of the main square. It’s your typical European flea market where you find vegetables, cheese, antiques and second-hand goods. This market is nothing compared to the flea market in Vienna, which is many times bigger – expect to spend an entire day there. Austrians and Europeans in general love flea markets. When you’re in Europe, you’re bound to run into various flea markets of some sort.

The flea market

Although it was not Sunday, many shops here were either closed or closed early. It’s common in Europe to close business on Sunday, so if you wander into less popular cities, all you can do is eat because food venues are the only places that are open for business.

A cafe bar on the main street

After a brief tour of the town, I returned to my hostel, a kind of cool and comfortable place. The Youth Hostel, Hostel Feldkirch, has been operated by the city for ten years and located about 15-minute walk from the city center and train/bus stations. The building architecture is a typical German Renaissance style seen a lot in Strasbourg, France. In the past, the city used this to house a leper society, confine sick people and keep them isolated from the outside world.

The youth hostel in Feldkirch

The gossiping German 

Despite this is called a youth hostel, I hardly saw  any youth while I was there. I saw off-season travelers and foreigners who lived there long-term. They worked in Feldkirch or Liechtenstein. at the hostel, I ran into a German guy from Stuttgart who sat in the lounge every evening and watched TV. Whenever he saw me, he volunteered information about everything to me. He left Germany because he got tired of paying heavy taxes there, so he found a job in Liechtenstein, working as an engineer. The guy had lived in the hostel for six months while looking for a flat to move in with his new girlfriend.

He bragged about his dream financial situation: living in a cheap border city, getting a salary in Liechtenstein standard (which is high), paying less than 1.5% tax, and paying less than 500 EUR for rent.  Like Andorra, Liechtenstein is a tax haven charging only 1.2 percent personal income tax. It’s dirt cheap compared to the massive tax rate typical in Europe, which can reach up to 50% in Sweden. While I enjoyed picking at strangers for information, I was a bit surprised and couldn’t understand how was it possible that a German talk way too much.

After just two hours watching TV with him, I learned he hates pretty much everybody.

• The girlfriend: His last girlfriend was a Paris Hilton wannabe, so he broke up with her.
• Th Turkish people – He hated Turkish people living in Germany; therefore, he hated Muslims. “I can’t help it. I like what I like and hate what I hate. I don’t travel to Turkey because I just hate them,” he told me.
• The Polish roommate – He had a low opinion of his Polish dorm-mate, a recovering alcoholic, who worked with a group of recovering alcoholic. “Jeez, the guy is an alcoholic and looks what he does, spending time with other alcoholics?”
• The Japanese instant-noodle man – He couldn’t understand why one Japanese traveler ate instant noodles every evening, and that was the only thing that he ate. Even worse, the Japanese barely spoke English and couldn’t communicate with the German, so he hates him.
• Chinese coworkers – He couldn’t stand the Chinese people at his work who for some strange reason laughed only in the group.
• Asian tourists – He complained about two Asian girls who woke him up during the night and didn’t shut up. “I asked them to keep quiet, but they didn’t understand what I said and roared with laughter.”
• The Slovak dates – His friend introduced him to a few good-looking Slovaks, but as it turned out: “They are pretty, but their teeth are freaking black,” he groaned.  “Geez. It’s disgusting!
• Fat Americans – “These Americans with their bellies sagging to here. They come out of the supermarket carrying bags as big as these,” he made gestures with his hands to show the size of Americans.
• Italian men – I learned that he was of Italian origin. That explains why he talked a lot. “I have a German head. I can’t live in Italy anymore,” he said.  “My Italian friends ask me who irons my shirts, does my laundry and cooks my meals. I said ‘me’ and they were like ‘Are you gay?’ These men stay with their parents until they get married. I have a friend who recently wed his girlfriend. They’ve dated for ten years but never went on a trip for more than a month by themselves.  He did not kiss her when he dropped her off at her house because ‘Are you crazy? Her father will kill me.’  They divorced six months later.”

I stayed in that hostel for only two nights and ran into the German for a few hours max. I wonder if I had stayed there for the entire week, I’d know everything ugly and nasty about everybody in this world.

You wonder why I put up with that rap for that long? I didn’t. I had already excused myself and went to the kitchen to prepare my meal, but he followed to continue the one-sided conversation, which was more like a monologue.

Who discriminates whom?

When your country is super small and rich, you don’t have any reason to open your arm to foreigners, not even the Germans or Austrians who share the same language and heritage. “A German friend of mine has lived in Liechtenstein for six years, but every other weekend he drives back to Germany. He has no friend there. He can’t make friends with the Liechtensteiners.”  The opinionated German let me on in a cultural secret which I was not, at this point, surprised.

Inequality and discrimination will always exist because the majority of people never move beyond their country border to see that their kind is not the only kind in the universe. Sure we can integrate immigrants and promote diversity, but there will always be tension between the host culture and its immigrant and expat communities.

We have ourselves to blame. After all, what goes around comes around. Ukrainians are subjected to discrimination from the richer Russia. Russian receive the same fate in richer Czech. Czechs guess the same thing in more prosperous Germany. Now you would think the bug stops here. Who would think that Germans and Austrians are looked down upon? Well, not before you know of a country called Liechtenstein.

Biking through Feldkirch

Enough with hating everybody. I didn’t come all the way to this beautiful town to hear gossip from a know-it-all Italian-German migrant worker. I came here to visit Liechtenstein to tick it off the list of countries to see in Europe as part of my Euro extravaganza travel project.

The main reason that I came to Feldkrich is to set up a nice base to visit Liechtenstein and Switzerland, which I did on the last day of the trip before returning to Prague. I rent a bike from the Hotel Gashof Löwen (www.hotel-loewen.at) the next morning and rode off to Liechtenstein.

Biking around Feldkirch

Biking through Feldkirch

Biking through Feldkirch

Visit a Tibetian Buddhist Monastery

Fresh from bike trip from Liechtenstein, I strolled back to the center to have another short walk and savor the last moment on my last day in the city before leaving for Zurich tomorrow. While strolling the street and minding my own business, I ran into Fraud Jugenberg. Thinking that Madam Mademoiselle me must be bored to death walking alone and photographing buildings, he volunteered to take pictures of me and following me around the square to take more photos. The stranger offered to show me around, boasting that he knew the city. I wasn’t in the mood for accompany. Men don’t do things for your for free, I thought. But I had nothing to lose. He was a local, and he could tell me more about the city, which by now was dead.

After one hour I told the guy that I had to meet someone, which was a lie. I don’t know how to say directly “Thanks for all the nice gestures, but I would like to be left alone now.”  

Fraud nice-guy drove me to the train station, not that I mind walking there, to buy a ticket to Zurich. Instead of letting me off, he said he was going to visit a Buddhist temple and asked if I wanted to tag a long. What do I do? Didn’t I just tell him I had an appointment with a fictional person about now? Well, I took out my phone to send an sms (a real one) to reply to a friend (from another country) on an entire different matter and turned to Fraud Jugenberger, “My friend postponed the meeting, and I can go.”  “I’m very happy,” Fraud Jugenberger smiled and drove off with me still in his car.

I wondered if Fraud nice-guy caught the lie I pulled, not that he cared anyway. We drove to Tashi Rabten Monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist temple 10 minute ride by car from the center. 

Letzehof Buddhist Monastery

(Photo credit: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Feldkirch)

A beautiful footpath led up from the car park to the monastery situated on a mountain overlooking the city. Tibetan prayer flags were hanging between the trees. Feldkirch was dead and quiet, but it wasn’t comparable to the environment here. You wouldn’t hear a thing except for bird chirping and tree rustling. It was complete peace. There was nobody except for Fraud nice-guy and I. We checked out the monastery that comprised of a Trijang Labrang, a meditation hall (Gompa), a spacious kitchen and dining hall. Still there was nobody.

We returned to Feldkirch after one hour. I bid farewell to the guy, had dinner, finished up my journal and went to sleep.

The Buddist monastery

To know more about the monastery, visit below website. It has a lot of information about the history of the monastery as well as current activities. You can attend the daily prayer and even stay there to learn about Buddhish teaching.

(Photo credit: http://www.dorjeshugden.org/temples/tashi-rabten)

Photos of Feldkirch

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