Hotel-Gasthof Löwen — Restaurant in Vaduz

Some people review this place positively, which is just naive.||||I use “fraud” in the legal sense, knowing European standards, this is factually not 4-star. At $400 it is a vile rip-off. True facts: ||- 0-stars for sweltering 27˚C (80˚F) heat in the room, with thermostat off – when it is a brisk 15˚C (60˚F) outside. ||- 0-stars for 30˚C (86˚F) in the breakfast/lobby area. ||- 0-stars for unbearably loud street noise because you must have windows open or sweat profusely.||- 0-stars for the free foam earplugs [sic]; yes I said earplugs, in an alleged 4-star, which they graciously provide beside your bed.||- 1-star for the handheld shower which is on a par with the cheapest of motels. ||- 1-star for ridiculous soap, see below.||- 1-star for the shower flooding profusely due their not having figured out shower doors or curtains – that’s too complex.||- 2-stars for breakfast quality by comparison to anything. ||- 2-stars for walk-up to rooms. ||- 1-star for incompetent arrogant front desk personnel. ||- 3-stars for decent (not great) imitation antique furnishings ||- 4-stars for an historically important building, evidently.||- 2-stars for free parking.||- Apart from that, nothing. Zero. Zilch. ||- 0-stars for marketing fraud as 4-stars at $400/nite||||That works out to 2 stars perhaps, and even at that it’s a stretch. 4-star is a simple marketing lie. I call that “fraud”. ||||Liechtenstein lets them get away with it. Hence it is a fraud that shames the nation, sufficiently to avoid it forever. Not exaggerating here folks.||||The management are dishonest to boot – with ‘tude. I even wrote the Liechtenstein government to report them, never done that before – it’s that bad. ||||Written here by a couple that has 100 countries plus thousands of hotels under our belts, and counting. Plus a well-followed non-commercial world travel website. We are simply exposing their fraud for the public’s benefit.||||Gasthof Loewen does look decent at first, until you actually use it. One can be excused for being suckered in.||||But then start with not being able to sleep due the unrelenting 27˚C (80˚F) sweaty heat in the room, with no ventilation whatsoever. Major traffic noise on the main thoroughfare a couple meters away, busy 24/7, prevents leaving windows open as much as you need – when it is a fresh 15˚C outside. My Tissot Touch travel watch has a thermometer, with which I demonstrated to the manager in the morning at exactly 30.5˚C (87˚F) in the breakfast room/lobby – because she had argued with me when I reported our room was 27˚C (80˚F), hence we couldn’t sleep.||||She didn’t give a hoot, gave me condescending ‘tude, dismissing me as an ignorant American due my English; “welcome to Europe” she sniffed as an excuse. Whaaat? (Factually we're a 4-language dual-citizenship couple both carrying EU + Canadian passports, if that counts as a credibility item.)||||No air conditioning or even ventilation is provided under the false pretext of being an historically-designated building. But I suppose in Liechtenstein a few hundred years ago they had heat radiators; modern electricity; hot water piping; thermal-pane windows and cable TV in the rooms? No horses and carriages in sight, but they do have 21st century car parking and flushing toilets, so some compromises are apparently OK. ||||Adding ventilation costs a little (not much) money – I’m a builder. There is in fact abundant interior room to run modern ductwork, they are just too cheap – contrary to the false excuses of the front desk person.||||The ridiculous heat is, according to madam manager, due to a “2-day-per-year hot spell” when in fact it was a nice chilly 17.5C outside at 08:30 June 17 2015 as we left, according to my car thermometer. Yet it was 30.5C (87F) in the breakfast room, which I demonstrated for the manager with a witness. ||||It is bad hotel design and maintenance, period full stop.||||So open the windows and stop whining when it’s a sweltering 27˚C inside and 15˚C outside and you cannot sleep, right? But then there’s the roaring traffic a few meters away – traffic so loud in fact, they provide you with earplugs beside your bed. Free foam ear plugs folks – imagine that, for $400 and 4-stars, you get free earplugs and actually do need to use them! ||||We had to open the windows wide, the noise penetrated the earplugs of course, so we didn't sleep much. A tad annoying shall we say? Does the hotel staff care? Quite the opposite, they get aggressively defensive.||||OK, so free earplugs. But soap? That’s too expensive in Liechtenstein evidently. You know those $50 no-name small town motels with the miniscule soap bars? Well, at a Liechtenstein 4-star you get two bars per room, literally 1/3 that size, so small it’s hard to hold. ||||The 1-star shower handle works – except you need to be seated in the tub and uber-careful lest it floods the bathroom completely. In this luxury Liechtenstein 4-star they have yet to conquer the fine art of the shower door – which is uber-ridiculous. We used every last towel to dry the floor yet it was still soaked and slippery. ||||Breakfast is below 2-star Germanic standards. They are just cheap. ||||What then DO you get for $400? Free earplugs. A TV so low you cannot see it from the bed. Am attitude of superiority without substance. But it is in fact a very old building, its sole redeeming quality, which frankly is purely academic and not aesthetically special or anything. It also does not help you eat or sleep. “Welcome to Europe” lady. Want to experience quality old things? Try say, Split Croatia (awesome!) and see our review of a 2000 year old hotel there or whatever it is. For example.||||Bleary-eyed and tired I complained to la manageresse in the morning, the reply being a stiff-backed superior-‘tude “nothing I can I do.” Yes you can I replied, cut the price by 50% due to the impossibility of sleep and the reality of a 2-star hotel – not that I believed she would. I received the expected blunt refusal followed by Sacharine sweetness.||||Overall, an insult to 2-star European places in the neighbourhood many of which are great. ||||I write this, for example, a day’s drive away via the brilliant Stevio Pass, from an Italian 2-star overlooking Lake Como at €100. See our separate review of Hotel Regina in Gravedona – we’re spending a second night. Why would anyone bother with Liechtenstein or Hotel Lowen’s fraud, when Italian splendour is so close? Or France, Germany, Switzerland – all within an easy few hours.||||Hotel Lowen was our worst accidental hotel choice in memory. So bad in fact we’re never going back to Liechtenstein, there being so many better Alpine choices nearby with genuine quality of rooms, food and service. At half or a third the cost. ||||The only reason one can think of for visiting Liechtenstein is the tax-avoidance and money laundering banking which is on its way out; Switzerland is virtually finished in this regard and the list shortens.||||Any country that allows 4 stars to be displayed by such con artists does not deserve our travel business, or yours.||||But congrats to the hotel owners, they got me financially: That same day as we stayed there, I had rented in Germany a Mercedes diesel automatic with GPS for a month from Sixt, at slightly over twice the price of this hotel room for one night. Hmmm.||||Another travel experience down the hatch. One gets good/bad ones, Gasthof Loewen being an, er,...

Some people review this place positively, which is just naive.||||I use “fraud” in the legal sense, knowing European standards, this is factually not 4-star. At $400 it is a vile rip-off. True facts: ||- 0-stars for sweltering 27˚C (80˚F) heat in the room, with thermostat off – when it is a brisk 15˚C (60˚F) outside. ||- 0-stars for 30˚C (86˚F) in the breakfast/lobby area. ||- 0-stars for unbearably loud street noise because you must have windows open or sweat profusely.||- 0-stars for the free foam earplugs [sic]; yes I said earplugs, in an alleged 4-star, which they graciously provide beside your bed.||- 1-star for the handheld shower which is on a par with the cheapest of motels. ||- 1-star for ridiculous soap, see below.||- 1-star for the shower flooding profusely due their not having figured out shower doors or curtains – that’s too complex.||- 2-stars for breakfast quality by comparison to anything. ||- 2-stars for walk-up to rooms. ||- 1-star for incompetent arrogant front desk personnel. ||- 3-stars for decent (not great) imitation antique furnishings ||- 4-stars for an historically important building, evidently.||- 2-stars for free parking.||- Apart from that, nothing. Zero. Zilch. ||- 0-stars for marketing fraud as 4-stars at $400/nite||||That works out to 2 stars perhaps, and even at that it’s a stretch. 4-star is a simple marketing lie. I call that “fraud”. ||||Liechtenstein lets them get away with it. Hence it is a fraud that shames the nation, sufficiently to avoid it forever. Not exaggerating here folks.||||The management are dishonest to boot – with ‘tude. I even wrote the Liechtenstein government to report them, never done that before – it’s that bad. ||||Written here by a couple that has 100 countries plus thousands of hotels under our belts, and counting. Plus a well-followed non-commercial world travel website. We are simply exposing their fraud for the public’s benefit.||||Gasthof Loewen does look decent at first, until you actually use it. One can be excused for being suckered in.||||But then start with not being able to sleep due the unrelenting 27˚C (80˚F) sweaty heat in the room, with no ventilation whatsoever. Major traffic noise on the main thoroughfare a couple meters away, busy 24/7, prevents leaving windows open as much as you need – when it is a fresh 15˚C outside. My Tissot Touch travel watch has a thermometer, with which I demonstrated to the manager in the morning at exactly 30.5˚C (87˚F) in the breakfast room/lobby – because she had argued with me when I reported our room was 27˚C (80˚F), hence we couldn’t sleep.||||She didn’t give a hoot, gave me condescending ‘tude, dismissing me as an ignorant American due my English; “welcome to Europe” she sniffed as an excuse. Whaaat? (Factually we're a 4-language dual-citizenship couple both carrying EU + Canadian passports, if that counts as a credibility item.)||||No air conditioning or even ventilation is provided under the false pretext of being an historically-designated building. But I suppose in Liechtenstein a few hundred years ago they had heat radiators; modern electricity; hot water piping; thermal-pane windows and cable TV in the rooms? No horses and carriages in sight, but they do have 21st century car parking and flushing toilets, so some compromises are apparently OK. ||||Adding ventilation costs a little (not much) money – I’m a builder. There is in fact abundant interior room to run modern ductwork, they are just too cheap – contrary to the false excuses of the front desk person.||||The ridiculous heat is, according to madam manager, due to a “2-day-per-year hot spell” when in fact it was a nice chilly 17.5C outside at 08:30 June 17 2015 as we left, according to my car thermometer. Yet it was 30.5C (87F) in the breakfast room, which I demonstrated for the manager with a witness. ||||It is bad hotel design and maintenance, period full stop.||||So open the windows and stop whining when it’s a sweltering 27˚C inside and 15˚C outside and you cannot sleep, right? But then there’s the roaring traffic a few meters away – traffic so loud in fact, they provide you with earplugs beside your bed. Free foam ear plugs folks – imagine that, for $400 and 4-stars, you get free earplugs and actually do need to use them! ||||We had to open the windows wide, the noise penetrated the earplugs of course, so we didn't sleep much. A tad annoying shall we say? Does the hotel staff care? Quite the opposite, they get aggressively defensive.||||OK, so free earplugs. But soap? That’s too expensive in Liechtenstein evidently. You know those $50 no-name small town motels with the miniscule soap bars? Well, at a Liechtenstein 4-star you get two bars per room, literally 1/3 that size, so small it’s hard to hold. ||||The 1-star shower handle works – except you need to be seated in the tub and uber-careful lest it floods the bathroom completely. In this luxury Liechtenstein 4-star they have yet to conquer the fine art of the shower door – which is uber-ridiculous. We used every last towel to dry the floor yet it was still soaked and slippery. ||||Breakfast is below 2-star Germanic standards. They are just cheap. ||||What then DO you get for $400? Free earplugs. A TV so low you cannot see it from the bed. Am attitude of superiority without substance. But it is in fact a very old building, its sole redeeming quality, which frankly is purely academic and not aesthetically special or anything. It also does not help you eat or sleep. “Welcome to Europe” lady. Want to experience quality old things? Try say, Split Croatia (awesome!) and see our review of a 2000 year old hotel there or whatever it is. For example.||||Bleary-eyed and tired I complained to la manageresse in the morning, the reply being a stiff-backed superior-‘tude “nothing I can I do.” Yes you can I replied, cut the price by 50% due to the impossibility of sleep and the reality of a 2-star hotel – not that I believed she would. I received the expected blunt refusal followed by Sacharine sweetness.||||Overall, an insult to 2-star European places in the neighbourhood many of which are great. ||||I write this, for example, a day’s drive away via the brilliant Stevio Pass, from an Italian 2-star overlooking Lake Como at €100. See our separate review of Hotel Regina in Gravedona – we’re spending a second night. Why would anyone bother with Liechtenstein or Hotel Lowen’s fraud, when Italian splendour is so close? Or France, Germany, Switzerland – all within an easy few hours.||||Hotel Lowen was our worst accidental hotel choice in memory. So bad in fact we’re never going back to Liechtenstein, there being so many better Alpine choices nearby with genuine quality of rooms, food and service. At half or a third the cost. ||||The only reason one can think of for visiting Liechtenstein is the tax-avoidance and money laundering banking which is on its way out; Switzerland is virtually finished in this regard and the list shortens.||||Any country that allows 4 stars to be displayed by such con artists does not deserve our travel business, or yours.||||But congrats to the hotel owners, they got me financially: That same day as we stayed there, I had rented in Germany a Mercedes diesel automatic with GPS for a month from Sixt, at slightly over twice the price of this hotel room for one night. Hmmm.||||Another travel experience down the hatch. One gets good/bad ones, Gasthof Loewen being an, er,...

Lovely meal in a very pleasant restaurant. We really enjoyed eating in a restaurant that didn't pack as many tables into a space as possible. This created a wonderful dining experience. We started with their lamb lettuce salad and liver dumpling consomme. The vinaigrette on the salad was light and delightful and did not overpower the wonderful fall lamb lettuce. My wife loved the consomme which had a slight liver flavor that I was able to enjoy a taste of even though I'm not a fan of liver! Our mains were the roasted quail breast with mushroom ravioli and sliced veal. Please excuse me not using the German terms. Both were very delicious too. We paired dinner with the Liechtenstein Alpagold beer. A real treat considering we were there to celebrate Liechtenstein! Our waiter and the support staff were very delightful and helpful. They were so nice to sit us at the window with a perfect view of the castle at night. It really added to our special night in Lichtenstein! We can't recommend this dining...