Schwägalp
Eastern Switzerland & Alpstein St. Gallen
St. Gallen
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Plan your trip
A handcrafted itinerary for St. Gallen.
SleepFind your stay
A short, curated list. None of them a chain.
GuidesFollow a route
Hand-curated, walked before written.
St. Gallen sits in the northeast corner of Switzerland, close enough to Lake Constance to feel it and close enough to Austria, Germany and Liechtenstein that four borders meet nearby.
The city grew from a hermit's cell: around 612, the Irish monk Gallus settled here after travelling from Arbon, and the settlement that formed around his hermitage became a Benedictine abbey, then a city.
The Abbey District, with its Baroque cathedral and library, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983.
The old town around it is car-free, built from half-timbered houses and narrow lanes, and marked by 111 richly carved oriel windows, each one different.
Things worth slowing down for
A few of our favourite spots in St. Gallen.
What makes St. Gallen slow travel perfect
St. Gallen is a city that built its reputation on paying close attention to small things. The Abbey Library, known locally as the Seelenapotheke, the pharmacy of the soul, holds 170,000 books, 50,000 of them shelved in a Baroque hall considered the finest of its kind outside a church in Switzerland. A 2,700-year-old Egyptian mummy named Shepenese sits among them, an odd companion for the theology texts.
Wander out of the Abbey District and the old town takes over: Marktgasse and Multergasse, half-timbered facades, and those oriel windows, carved with camels, griffins, pelicans, each a small piece of St. Gallen's old textile wealth made visible. The city built its fortune on embroidery, and that history still shows in its boutiques and its Textile Museum.
On the Gallusplatz, outside the cathedral, the pace slows on its own. From there, the Mühleggbahn funicular climbs to the Drei Weieren, three ponds above the rooftops where locals swim in summer and the city opens out below.
St. Gallen rewards this kind of looking closely: at a window, a shelf, a view from higher ground.