Mäls, the other half of Balzers by the Rhine

Almost everyone who comes to Balzers looks up at Gutenberg Castle and leaves. I’m more interested in what lies below, towards the Rhine, because that’s where Mäls is, the old village that merged with Balzers but, according to the Historisches Lexikon, still has a pride of its own. In an hour you can see both its chapels and understand why this corner was a border crossing for centuries.

A village that won’t be swallowed up

Mäls sits at 476 m between the Rhine and the Fläscherberg and since the early 20th century has formed a single built-up area with Balzers. The name is probably Celtic and nobody has fully explained it. It has been linked to a Meilis recorded around 842/43, though it’s unclear whether that meant Mäls or Mels across the Rhine.

What I enjoy is the nuance the Lexikon records. Mäls, which claims to be older than Balzers, keeps a sense of its own identity, especially among older residents, and the rivalry between the two halves still shows on Funken Sunday, when they compete over the height of their bonfires. The earliest traces of settlement in its area date from the 3rd century.

St Peter’s and the tower house, the old heart

The oldest part of the village, according to the Lexikon, is the area around St Peter’s chapel and a medieval tower house from around 1300. Together they were the centre of a lordly estate. The chapel is no earlier than 1300, gained a choir around 1510 and its bell tower in 1578, and has been listed since 1951. For the tourist board, it’s one of Liechtenstein’s oldest churches.

Inside is what makes the stop worthwhile for me, a Gothic winged altarpiece from about 1516, with carved figures of St John the Evangelist, St Peter and St Paul and wings painted on both sides. There’s also a wooden enthroned Virgin from around 1410 or 1420. Its hours aren’t published anywhere official that I know of, so I’d expect to see it from outside and count myself lucky if it’s open.

Mariahilf and the battle of 1289

The other chapel comes with a legend. According to the Lexikon, Mariahilf was supposedly built to commemorate the battle of 5 January 1289 between the Bishop of Chur, Friedrich von Montfort, and his cousin Hugo II of Werdenberg-Heiligenberg. What is documented is a new chapel recorded in 1690 and early 18th-century works that gave it the apse, extra height and its onion-domed tower.

It’s baroque and beautifully complete. There are wooden altars from around 1720 or 1730, stained glass from 1945 and an organ by Silvester Walpen from 1824, bought in 1869. The high altar painting is a copy of Lucas Cranach’s Mariahilf Madonna from Innsbruck Cathedral, which I think is a lovely touch in such a small place. I compare them with the rest of the country’s in churches and chapels in Liechtenstein.

A border crossing with plenty of history

For centuries Mäls was a Rhine crossing. There was a ford, a temporary bridge was laid in winter and, until the first bridge to Trübbach in 1871, a ferry. French troops crossed here on 6 March 1799, and that October 16,000 Russian soldiers under General Suvorov camped in Balzers and Mäls. During the customs union with Austria, from 1852 to 1919, smugglers’ paths into Switzerland started here.

The ground here has been worked for a long time as well. Since 1860, according to the Lexikon, the Altneugut quarry has produced so-called Balzers marble, a limestone that was being carved long before that, as the 1678 font in Triesen’s parish church shows. Mäls got its own schoolhouse in 1838, mains water in 1903 and electricity in 1921.

Today it’s peaceful. The Gagoz bypass took almost all through traffic away in 1968, and in 1975 a footbridge went up where the old bridge had stood until it burnt in 1972. Walking across it is about the simplest way to step into Switzerland, and I cover it with the other crossings in my guide to the Rhine in Liechtenstein.

Pairing it with Gutenberg

The Mälsner Dorf stop on LIEmobil line 11 is the one the castle association recommends for Gutenberg, so Mäls is on your way. I’d go up to Gutenberg Castle first, walk down to St Peter’s and Mariahilf, and catch the bus back from the village centre.