Heididorf — Attraction in Maienfeld

Well, we were disappointed. That's very commercialised. We felt that they were trying to mislead us. Do not be fooled: Heidi has never existed. That means she has never lived there. She's a fictional character. These houses have nothing to do with her. They only tried to make you imagine how it could have been if she had lived there. You have some pieces of information about the life in the 19th century in the Swiss countryside, but all in all too few for the price. I haven't learned a lot and to my opinion, it was not worth the trip (I am from Switzerland). We had chosen a special date to have a guided tour, but unfortunately the guided tour has been cancelled one day before (because we were the only ones). It was not worth coming all the way there, paying for a hotel and having only some information about life at that time.

We can of course go to the "Alm" (Ochsenberg), but there is only a small bar with handmade regional pies. It has nothing to do with Heidi and there are no new information there. The walk is nice (and easy - less than two hours walk), but there are much nicer hikes in Switzerland.

I would call it a sort of tourist trap.

Positive point: the staff is very friendly.

Otherwise: if you really want to go there, we can recommend you to sleep in Bad Ragaz (the prices for hotels in Maienfeld are much too high!), that's only 4 minutes away from Maienfeld by train. Another option would be to sleep on the straw in Maienfeld (cheaper), but that's only possible between May...

What a beautiful experience. I grew up with the Heidi movie and books and it was amazing to see the costumes, props and village from the movies as well as driving through beautiful Maienfeld. It’s a narrow two way road, more like one way, up to the parking lot, buses get through as well. Then a 5-7min walk, with a toddler it took 10-15minutes and from the bottom carpark it would have been accessible with a pram or wheelchair. We parked by the Heididorf restaurant which had a narrow track to the village. Bring coins for parking. It wasn’t expensive. There are toilets at the restaurant and there is a playground. They serve delicious barley soup among other things. Heididorf was amazing. You can buy entry tickets in the gift shop and upstairs is the museum. You can also buy goat and chicken food. You can go in and feed the goats. That was great. Lots of great displays and original movie set rooms. It all looks so authentic. Stunning views all around of the alps and wildlife. One of my favourite things to do in switzerland. A...

Actually sharing more for my wife, I knew basically nothing about Heidi, apparently the second most popular book next to the Bible, which says a lot. The houses were recognizable by my wife, she said, “Oh look, the window Heidi would look out”. Everything is very picturesque and beautiful with a gift shop/ticket shop to purchase your tickets if you don’t already have them. We arrived by train and it was a good hike to get there, but if you are up for the hike, it is still beautiful. If you arrive by car, there is parking much closer to the Heididorf. I am also guessing that there are probably tours that would get you there too without as much hiking, but if you want to do it on your own, it brings the price down and puts things on your own schedule. I would not recommend the hike for young kids as it is pretty much up hill all the way and the road is fairly narrow in some places, as in there is no place to get off as it is walled on both sides. It made me wax nostalgic for the simple country life to...