Gaflei, Liechtenstein's balcony above Vaduz

Gaflei is Liechtenstein’s balcony, an alp on the slope above Triesenberg from which Vaduz looks like a model village. For me it’s the best effort-to-view ratio in the country, because the bus takes you all the way up, and it also happens to be where mountain tourism in the principality began.

A Vaduz alp on Triesenberg soil

Gaflei runs from 1,270 to 1,570 m and covers 25.7 hectares. The quirk, as the Historisches Lexikon explains, is that it lies within Triesenberg but belongs to the capital. Until 1860-1861 it was a Walser middle pasture; it then changed hands several times, and in 1955 the municipality of Vaduz bought it. The name comes from old Romansh and means something like a place of caves or overhanging rock. Silum, the alp above Masescha, was a Walser middle pasture too, and it also ended up as a summer retreat for visitors.

What is there to see at Gaflei? The tower

Start with the tower, which the tourist board praises for its spectacular outlook over Vaduz and recommends to walkers and families alike. It’s free to climb. I’d go in the morning, with the sun behind you, and compare it with the country’s other high spots on my guide to viewpoints in Liechtenstein.

The tower has a back story. The Lexikon records that the Gaflei hotel built a swimming pool and a viewing tower in 1930. I haven’t found a source saying whether today’s tower is the same one, so I’ll stick to what’s certain, which is that people have been looking down on the valley from up here for nearly a century.

Where the country’s mountain tourism began

Liechtenstein’s first spa guesthouse opened here in 1875, a whey and fresh-air cure house, as these Alpine health resorts were called at the time, partly set up to sell the alp’s own cheese and milk. The road from Masescha arrived in 1880, and between 1895 and 1898 Karl Schädler enlarged it to a hundred beds, with a function room and a skittle alley. Until the First World War, the Kurhaus Gaflei put up most of the tourists who came to the country, with 4,919 overnight stays in 1911.

It has darker chapters too. In 1933, the Lexikon says, Gaflei was the scene of an antisemitic kidnapping attempt that ended in deaths, and in 1943-1944 it took in 59 schoolchildren evacuated from bombed-out Essen. Then came a modern hotel in 1966, years of losses, a closure, a philosophy academy and demolition in 2005. Since 2019 the site has been home to the Clinicum Alpinum, a private clinic for severe depression, with a restaurant open to the public, the Gaflei Stuba, at 1,483 m.

What never arrived was a cable car. Between 1948 and the 1970s several schemes for a cabin lift from Vaduz to Gaflei were drawn up and none of them got built, so you still come up by road. The alp itself is still farmed, though more lightly. The municipality knocked down the old barn and dairy in 2006, and the Lexikon now describes only light, extensive use of the pastures, with no dairy left on the alp.

The trailhead for the Fürstensteig

For hillwalkers, Gaflei is above all the gateway to the Fürstensteig. The Drei Schwestern path was opened from here in 1897-1898, and Prince Johann II paid for its most spectacular section. The tourist board describes secured rock sections suited only to people who are steady on their feet, and snow can linger well into spring. I wouldn’t wing it. Even if you’re not doing it, walk to the start and you’ll see why the tourist board ranks it among the country’s most impressive mountain routes.

Getting up there, eating and sleeping

LIEmobil route 22 leaves Triesenberg centre once an hour and reaches the Gaflei, Matu and Gaflei, Klinik stops in 12 or 13 minutes, via Masescha. You pay on board by card or app. By car from Vaduz, you drive up through Triesenberg and Masescha.

For food there’s the Gaflei Stuba and Berggasthaus MATU, which the Liechtenstein Alpine Club puts at 1,450 m, with rooms, on the route between the Gafadura hut and the Pfälzerhütte. If you want an early start on the Fürstensteig, staying there makes sense. Otherwise I’d head back down to Vaduz on two buses for the night.

One last thing if you’re here in mid-August. On 15 August 2026, around 21:15, the official national day programme included mountain illuminations and a procession of lights along the Fürstensteig, which starts right here.