The pubs: part one

Our first pub was a natural choice: the Old Castle Inn on Äulestraße. (In case you're interested, the monolithic grey building visible on the left-hand side is the art museum.)

Better inn than out

I didn't really see the inside of this establishment, instead choosing to relax under the front awning while someone else bought the beers. We took the chance to line our stomachs before the day's drinking. I went for a Rösti, which was excellent; but the cross of mozzarella carefully melted on top of a layer of tomato, evoking the Swiss flag, did little to convince us tourists that Liechtenstein is a real country in its own right.

The London Men's Self-Help Diners Club®

Since you've bean gone

We then picked a random direction – north – and came across a mysterious building with the word Löwen on the outside, which clearly had a bar on the inside. After knocking on the door for several minutes, to no avail, we wandered around the back, where we found a member of staff. Al enquired as to whether the place was closed, and bizarrely the man pointed directly upwards into the air, with a smirk on his face. We eventually realised that he must have misheard geschlossen ("closed") as Schloss ("castle"), thinking that us crazy English tourists couldn't see Prince Hans-Adam II's abode on the mountain directly above his head. After explaing that we actually wanted a drink, he saw sense and let us in.

Tim sets out his vision of global strategy

This was a very nice old-style bar, which probably served good beer and had entertaining music on in the background. However, the main thing I remember about it is that on the way down to the toilets there was a curious lectern in the corridor and a huge stag's head on the wall, leading us to conclude that it was part urban hunting-lodge, part rural conference centre.

After finishing our drinks, as ever we stopped for a photo, making sure that the ubiquitous castle was in the background.

No, that's not a cable car above the castle, it's a street light

We then continued north up Landstraße looking for more pubs. Sadly there weren't any, but we did encounter the Vaduz Phantasie-Train. Looking back, I've no idea why we didn't attempt to flag it down and jump aboard – but this was probably ruled out on the grounds that fantasy transport does not count as public transport.

Is it a bus? Is it a train?

After realising that this end of town featured something of a dearth of drinking venues, we decided to take a leisurely stroll back towards the western side of Vaduz, across some fields. We incurred a delay in our schedule while we waited for Tim to stroke an Alpine cow's nose.

How now brown cow

Suddenly, it dawned on us that we were supposed to be getting the beers in, not communing with nature, so we picked a road, Lettstraße, that looked like it led back into the town centre, and resolved to find some more bars.