Well into the mountains now, the first trip of the day was south to Italy and to the resort town of Bolzano / Bozen. Again, the drive itself was great as it involves lots of twists and turns as the Autobahn – and then the Autopista – worked its way through the mountains of the Tyrol region.

On the way we had to travel through Germany again – so what I thought was my last trip into the country a few days ago actually wasn’t – it’s so geographically central, I can see why it’s got involved in many of my trips.

After a nice outdoor lunch – spaghetti of course – back on the road and I deliberately picked a non-motorway road because I wanted to experience mountain driving at its best. It’s very difficult to express the exhilarating feeling from a drive through the mountains, away from the main road – some would say it’s what cars were built for – especially the adverts for them.

After a bit of driving it’s back into Austria, just a few hundred metres from the border with Switzerland. The next destination, however, was one of those small, little understood nations, but with a charm all of its own – Lichtenstein.

Entering the small principality, closely related to Switzerland, involved the first border control with real border guards checking passports. Of course, like it’s neighbour, it’s outside of the European Union and has many of its own rules and regulations. Lichtenstein is famous as a tax haven (slightly less so since the details of hundreds, if not thousands, of people’s affairs were recently leaked/sold to various countries’ tax authorities in recent months), a centre for business excellence and a country with various unique rules. One thing I did notice, early on a Saturday evening, was that everything is closed. They don’t believe in long opening hours – Vaduz, the capital, seemed completely closed for business when everywhere else I know would be at its most lively.

The only thing going on was an international Beach Volleyball tournament – an interesting choice of sport for one of only two doubly-landlocked countries in the world.

Anyway, even for such a small place, Lichtenstein genuinely does have its own character and well worth a visit.

After that it was in to Switzerland itself – via the river which is the entire Western border between Lichtenstein and Switzerland – and on to the resort town of Chur, where we were staying tonight. Had to go via country roads, because we wouldn’t find a shop selling the motorway sticker (“Vignette”) required, but again, worth it because of the surroundings.

KM TRAVELLED TODAY: 551 km TOTAL: 4703 km