Our epic 9-country road trip designed to hit all 5 European microstates came to an end on Sunday. Despite some initial trepidation, it turned out to be fantastic!
This was one of our best trips, in fact, despite encountering this choice little nugget on 2 of the tiny 5 from a Cadogan guide book that we used several years ago on a previous trip:
“It’s a sleazy little paradise, [Microstate X]. . . Today, the [inhabitants] have found a way to exploit every single possibility open to a grasping, sweaty-palmed pipsqueak principality. They’ve turned their lovely corner of the [region] into a single, garish supermarket. It’s a worthy competitor for Europe’s other Ruritanian craphole, [Microstate Y], which, if you’ve never been, is the first country in the world to be entirely paved over with factory outlet car parks.”
Yow! We’ll reveal which of the pipsqueak nations the Cadogan guide was referencing in subsequent posts, but we were infatuated with the tiny countries and undeterred! We persisted and planned and executed a pretty ambitious itinerary to hit all 5 microstates in a single trip.
Information on continental Europe’s 5 tiniest nations – and the characteristics that define a microstate – was previously posted here. A repost of the map with the location of each is below:
Location of the continental Europe’s five microstates
The trip was great adventure, overall – both based on the tiny countries and some of the outstanding start, stop, or stopover locations in Italy, Switzerland, France, and Spain that we included in the trip to keep driving distances practical. Our experiences in the five microstates spanned the spectrum:
- Two exceeded our fairly modest expectations (biased in part by the pithy and brutal opinion proffered by the Cadogan guide) and we really enjoyed our visit to both
- One was precisely as expected
- Two were definitely not as awesome as we thought they would be – one was simply not as magnificent as we had envisioned, while the other turned out to be every bit just an outrageously expensive Disney world
These reactions will be assigned to the appropriate country in future posts, but some highlights of the tiny five are below, presented in the order in which we encountered the little buggers.
No. 1 of 5: The State of Vatican City:
Hallway of maps in the Vatican Museum
At the border between Vatican City and Rome – No. 1 complete
No. 2 of 5 – The Most Serene Republic of San Marino:
Guaita (1st Castle) on San Marino’s Mount Titano
San Marino’s town hall at sunset
View from Cesta (2nd Castle) to Guaita (1st Castle) on Mount Titano in San Marino – Microstate No. 2 complete
No. 3 of 5 and location for the Big 5-0 milestone – the Principality of Liechtenstein:
Vaduz castle from afar
and up close – No. 3 complete
4 of 5 – Principality of Monaco:
Monte Carlo casino our evening in Monaco
Above the port of Monte Carlo – No. 4 complete
And finally, No. 5 of 5 and the microstate that started it all – the Principality of Andorra:
11th-century Sant Joan de Caselles church with Lombard-style tower in Andorra
Casa de la Vall in Andorra la Vella – headquarters of the General Council of Andorra; No. 5 of 5 complete!
Before we left the US, we were a little concerned that the trip could turn out to be an arduous box-checking exercise involving too much driving and not enough time to enjoy each destination, based on the itinerary we designed:
- Take a redeye to Rome
- Day 1: Vatican City (1 of 5 . . .)
- Day 2: Drive to San Marino (2 of 5 . . .)
- Day 3: Drive to Bergamo, Italy
- Day 4: Drive to Liechtenstein (3 of 5 . . .)
- Day 5: Drive to Lake Lugano, Switzerland
- Day 6: Drive to Monaco (4 of 5 . . .)
- Day 7: Drive to Carcassonne, France
- Day 8: Drive to Andorra (5 of 5!)
- Day 9: Drive to Barcelona
- Day 10: Fly back
Instead, our daily cadence ended up providing a good balance – we’d drive for a few hours each morning in our rockin’ diesel Skoda family truckster . . .
Our trusty Skoda after navigating the narrow alleyways of Bergamo on Day 3
. . . then arrive at our destination in the early afternoon to explore things, typically log some downtime in the evening at the hotel pool, then grab dinner.
Sweet pool in Carcassonne, our stopover between Monaco and Andorra
Although the trip focused on the microstates, some of the stopovers proved to be just as rewarding, including staying in a hotel that overlooked Lake Lugano in Switzerland on August 1, without realizing beforehand that this was the Swiss National Holiday – spectacular!
Fireworks over Lake Lugano to celebrate the Swiss National Holiday
We’ll post highlights of each of the five micronations plus the very cool stopover locations during the next few weeks.
Oh, and the book read as we started the trip?
Of course.
WolfeStreetTravel 
What a great idea for a trip. Looked beautiful. Dave
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Thanks, Dave! Definitely exceeded expectations!
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I’m considering a trip just like this for an anniversary vacation in a few years. Would love to pick your brain on some things.
I was considering the reverse route and skipping Liechtenstein on this trip (saving for a Swiss/Austria/Germany trip), but possibly flying to Malta after Rome at the end of the trip to knock out all of the Mediterranean microstates before returning to the USA via Barcelona.
Biggest thing I’m wondering right now is the feasibility of a single rental car with high expenses on one way out-of-country fees versus doing more of a mix and match with public transit and car rentals, trying to avoid taking a rental across borders. Looks like buses would be simple enough for the Barcelona-Andorra-Toulousse route, possibly a car rental to Nice, then trains into Monaco and Italy.
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Hi, Alex,
I did a quick review using Rome2Rio and it’s doable, but it looks to me like the Barcelona to Andorra leg is the only efficient one. All of the others require both car share/taxi + train, multiple connections in some instances, and traveling out of your way to get from destination A to destination B. That being said, if the additional time is not an issue, then it’s a much more cost-efficient way to go. The drop fee to leave in Barcelona the car we picked up in Rome was borderline extortion. But, we prioritized time over cost, and had to pay for this choice.
Regardless, I think leaving Liechtenstein off removes a major North / South outlier in the route, resulting in logistics and time benefits (but including Liechtenstein on our route exposed us to Bergamo, which was nice, and Lake Lugano, which was spectacular – we never would have visited either of those places otherwise. Adding Malta is a great addition! We’re finally hitting that in June – a long overdue visit.
Of all of the legs, I would definitely do a stopover town (or two) between Andorra and Monaco and between Monaco and San Marino. Maybe base this on the train connections, since those locations are all promising.
Good luck and happy to provide any additional thoughts based on our experience!
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