Malbun is Liechtenstein's mountain: a high, secluded valley at around 1.600 metres, surrounded by peaks, where the small country keeps its only ski resort and its finest nature. At the end of a winding road that climbs from Vaduz through Triesenberg and Steg, the village suddenly appears in a cirque of mountains, with its chairlifts, its family-run hotels and the silence of the high mountains.
In winter, Malbun is a ski resort on a national scale: modest, family-friendly and uncrowded, ideal for learning, skiing with the family or enjoying the snow without the crowds of the big alpine resorts. In summer it turns into a hiking paradise: the Sareis chairlift climbs to 2.000 metres, where the Fürstin-Gina-Weg begins, the trail dedicated to Princess Gina, and on its slopes you can see ibex, chamois and marmots in the wild.
This guide explores Malbun with a practical, warm eye: how to ski in winter, which hikes to do in summer, how to ride the chairlifts, where to see alpine wildlife, how to get there on the mountain bus and what to expect from the village. It is Liechtenstein's nature destination par excellence, perfect both for a day trip from the capital and for a few days in the mountains with the family.
Until the mid-20th century, Malbun was a remote valley of high pastures (an 'alp') used in summer by the Walser herders of Triesenberg, on which it depends administratively. Its transformation into a tourist centre began in the 1960s, when the first lifts and hotels were built and Malbun became the principality's ski resort, the only one in the country. Its family atmosphere and small scale attracted, from the start, the country's own families —including the princely family, closely tied to the mountains— and visitors from neighbouring Switzerland and Austria. Over time, Malbun added an increasingly important summer offering, based on hiking, scenic chairlifts and alpine wildlife watching, until it became Liechtenstein's great nature destination in both seasons. The full history of the mountain and of the Walser who settled it is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The country's Alpine side: Malbun, the principality's only ski resort, and the neighbouring valley of Steg and the Valünatal, a high-mountain corner for walking, cross-country skiing and breathing in the calm.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Some countries have whole mountain ranges; Liechtenstein has, basically, one mountain valley, and it's called Malbun. At the end of a winding road that climbs up from the Rhine valley, through forests and past sheer drops, the village suddenly appears in an amphitheatre of peaks at 1,600 metres. Here you'll find the principality's only ski resort, its finest nature and its wildest fauna. For a tiny country devoted to finance and industry, Malbun is its green lung, its playground and its refuge: everyone's mountain.
The story of Malbun is, at heart, the story of how a remote high pasture, used for centuries only in summer by herders, became the holiday destination of an entire country. It's a short story —just a few decades of tourism— but a very revealing one, because it shows the same leap that all of Liechtenstein made in the 20th century: from a subsistence economy to prosperity, from isolation to connection with the world.
It's also the story of a heartfelt bond: the one between the princely family and these mountains. The princes of Liechtenstein have skied, hiked and spent their summers in Malbun just like any other family in the country, and that simple, genuine tie is part of the charm of this small but mighty mountain.
For most of its history, Malbun wasn't a village but an 'alp': a high pasture people climbed up to in summer. These heights belonged —and administratively still belong— to the municipality of Triesenberg, the village founded in the 13th century by the Walser, those Alpine settlers from the Swiss Valais who specialised in living and working where nobody else would. It was they who, generation after generation, drove their cattle up to the pastures of Malbun and neighbouring Steg during the warm season, making the most of the high-altitude grass before the snow covered everything.
That economy of vertical transhumance —from valley to mountain in summer, from mountain to valley in winter— was the way of life on these heights for centuries. Malbun was a place of herders' huts, cows and hay, not hotels or skiers. Winter left it deserted and frozen, cut off by the snow. Nobody back then would have imagined that this out-of-the-way valley would become a tourist resort.
The landscape hikers admire today —the pastures, the trails, the huts— is largely the legacy of that centuries-long work by the Walser, who shaped the mountain with their livestock and their hay meadows. Malbun isn't an 'untouched' mountain in the strict sense, but a mountain tamed over eight hundred years by a tenacious community of Alpine herders.
Malbun's transformation came in the 20th century, driven by the rise of mountain tourism and Liechtenstein's growing wealth. After the Second World War, as the country went from agricultural poverty to prosperity, it began to see its mountains differently: not just as pastures, but as a tourism resource. From the 1960s onwards in particular, the first lifts, hotels and services were built in Malbun, and the old high pasture became the principality's ski resort, the only one in the country.
The scale was always modest, in keeping with the size of Liechtenstein: a few chairlifts and drag lifts, a few kilometres of slopes, a handful of hotels. Building and improving the mountain road from Vaduz, via Triesenberg and Steg, was key to making the valley accessible all year round, including in winter, when it used to be cut off by snow. That connection meant Malbun stopped being a seasonal pasture and came to life in both seasons. But its small scale, far from being a flaw, became Malbun's trademark: a family-friendly, quiet, accessible resort without the crowds, where whole generations of Liechtensteiners learned to ski. Despite its tiny size, the country went on to produce elite skiers: Hanni Wenzel, who grew up in this setting, won Olympic medals in alpine skiing in 1980, an astonishing achievement for such a small nation and proof of how deeply rooted skiing was in Malbun.
The princely family contributed to that down-to-earth character. The princes of Liechtenstein have been regular users of the mountain, and their bond with Malbun reinforces the image of a place where snow is a heritage shared by the whole country, from the sovereign to the schoolchild. Malbun grew, but it never lost that human scale.
Today's Malbun lives off two seasons. In winter it's the country's ski resort: family-friendly slopes, a ski school, the Malbi-Park for the little ones and a relaxed atmosphere that sets it apart from the big Alpine resorts. In summer it reinvents itself as a hiking destination: the Sareis chairlift climbs to over 2,000 metres, the starting point of the Fürstin-Gina-Weg —the trail dedicated to Princess Gina, mother of the current prince— and its slopes are laced with a network of routes for every level, from gentle walks to the climb up the Augstenberg or the hike to the Pfälzerhütte.
The Pfälzerhütte, the high-mountain hut on the Bettlerjoch at over 2,100 metres, is today one of Malbun's big draws and a symbol of its purest Alpine side: a place to eat and sleep right in the mountains, and the starting point for climbing peaks such as the Naafkopf, where the borders of Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Austria meet. Malbun has also established itself as a sanctuary for Alpine wildlife: ibex, chamois and marmots live on its slopes and are one of the highlights of summer.
Beyond the figures and the seasons, Malbun represents something essential for Liechtenstein: proof that this country of bankers, industrialists and castles is also, and perhaps above all, a mountain country. In barely three quarters of an hour you go from the museums of Vaduz to the high pastures where marmots whistle and where the princely family skis like any neighbour. That closeness between the cosmopolitan and the Alpine, between the Swiss franc and the ibex, is Malbun's ultimate charm: the mountain of an entire country.
