The Eschnerberg, the hill that made the Unterland

Look at the Unterland from Vaduz and what you see isn’t a village but a hill. The Eschnerberg rises out of the Rhine plain like an island, and around it five villages have shared its woods, meadows and even its ruins for centuries. To me the best way to understand the north of the country is to walk it.

An island hill in the Rhine valley

The Historisches Lexikon describes it as an isolated hill in the Rhine valley, 440 to 650 metres high, stretching about 8 km from Bendern in the south-west to Nofels, a district of Feldkirch, in the north-east. Most of it belongs to Liechtenstein and it touches all five municipalities of the Unterland, Eschen, Gamprin, Mauren, Ruggell and Schellenberg, with some rather tangled boundaries.

It has rounded tops, gentle hills to the south-east and rock faces to the north-east, on the Gantenstein. The elongated hills on the south-eastern flank, up to 1,600 metres long, are drumlins, mounds of debris the glacier left under the ice. Geologically it belongs to the Helvetic nappe, the one found in the Western Alps.

Why does it matter so much to the Unterland?

Because historically the Unterland is the Eschnerberg. The communities on its slopes formed the lordship of Schellenberg from the 15th century, and in the 15th and 16th centuries saying «on the Eschnerberg» meant the same as the lordship. Even the Landammann, the top local official, was styled Landammann of the Eschnerberg. The Prince bought the lordship in 1699, and the oath of allegiance was sworn at its south-western tip, on the hill at Bendern.

Nearly seven thousand years of history

The Eschnerberg is one of the earliest inhabited places in Liechtenstein. Finds go back to the Middle Neolithic, around 4700-4000 BC, and there are several sites on its summits and plateaux. On the Eschen side is the Malanser, at 651 metres, a small settlement between three rocky knolls where a grey stone adze from the late 6th or early 5th millennium BC was found, among the earliest evidence of the Neolithic in Liechtenstein. In the Bronze Age, the Lexikon says, the Alpine Laugen-Melaun culture reached the western edge of its range here.

Close by is the Schneller, at 630 metres, a small plateau of 10 by 20 metres that served in the Iron Age as a burnt offering site, with a black layer up to a metre deep packed with pottery and bone. That pottery gave its name to a whole culture of the Rhine valley. The historical society first probed the site in 1943 and David Beck excavated it in 1949-50, the same archaeologist who later uncovered the upper castle at Schellenberg. Gamprin has the Lutzengüetle and Bendern’s hill, and Schellenberg the Borscht, with traces of a Bronze Age settlement. In fairness, there’s little to see with the naked eye, and the interest lies in the panels.

The historic ridge path

Between 1972 and 1974 the Unterland tourist association and the country’s historical society laid out the Historischer Höhenweg, a circular path over the hill with 45 panels on local and natural history. Gamprin municipality explains that it runs along both sides of the ridge, is well signposted and that each panel has a QR code and a map. It passes the ruins of the Schellenberg castles, the Holy Cross chapel on the Rofenberg in Eschen and the sites at Borscht and Lutzengüetle.

Built in the early 1500s, the Rofenberg chapel marks the spot where the old pilgrim route from Vorarlberg to Einsiedeln and Santiago met other paths. Until 1808 the lordship’s court met before the chapel or at the neighbouring inn. The village itself is covered on Eschen.

Wine and footpaths

The hill makes wine too. The country’s official portal mentions small wineries «from the Eschnerberg to Gutenberg», and in 1784 Bendern was said to produce the best wine in the lordship. If the liquid side interests you, it’s on Liechtenstein wine.

For easy walking, the Liechtenstein Trail crosses the hill on its last two stages, and buses 33 and 35 climb to Schellenberg from Mauren and from Bendern. That way you can start on one side and finish on the other without retracing your steps. The rest of the country’s routes are gathered on hiking in Liechtenstein.