St. Gallen Cathedral

St. Gallen Cathedral tickets: which one to buy

St. Gallen Cathedral stands in the Abbey District of St. Gallen, a city in north-eastern Switzerland near Lake Constance, and entry to the cathedral is free. Together with the Abbey Library, it forms the Convent of St. Gall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most important monastic complexes in Europe. The Abbey Library, with its rococo reading hall and priceless medieval manuscripts, requires a ticket, as do the Abbey Cellar exhibition, where the famous Plan of St. Gall is explained, and the Lapidarium, displaying carved stones from earlier buildings.

Visitors must wear felt slippers in the library to protect the wooden floor. St. Gallen is about an hour from Zurich by train, and the Abbey District is a short walk from the station through the old town, known for its painted oriel windows. Visitors often combine the cathedral with the Textile Museum, recalling the city's history of embroidery, the Appenzell region and Lake Constance. The cathedral is active, and visiting pauses during services. Guided tours of the Abbey District are offered in several languages. The large lawn in front of the cathedral is a popular spot to relax in summer.

Visiting St. Gallen Cathedral: what to see

The Irish monk Gallus settled in the forest here in 612, and a monastery was founded on the site of his hermitage in 719 by Saint Othmar. It became one of the great centres of learning in medieval Europe, with a famous school, a scriptorium that produced illuminated manuscripts, and a library that still holds many of them. The Plan of St. Gall, drawn in the ninth century, is the oldest surviving architectural plan of a monastery. The present cathedral was built between 1756 and 1766 in the late baroque style, designed by Peter Thumb and Johann Michael Beer von Bildstein, with two towers on the east facade.

Inside, the building is bright and spacious, with a central rotunda linking the nave and the choir, and it is decorated with green and gold stucco, frescoes by Joseph Wannenmacher and carved confessionals and choir stalls. The ceiling paintings show scenes of heaven and saints. The abbey was dissolved in 1805, and the church became the cathedral of the new Diocese of St. Gallen in 1847. The Abbey Library's reading hall, completed in 1767, is lined with carved wooden bookcases and painted ceilings, and it displays manuscripts from the eighth century onwards, as well as an Egyptian mummy.

St. Gallen Cathedral opening hours and the best time to go

The cathedral is open daily, with visits restricted during services, and the Abbey Library is open daily except for a few weeks in November, when it closes for maintenance. Summer is the busiest season, and the St. Gallen Festival brings opera performances to the Abbey District in late June and July. The OpenAir St. Gallen music festival is held at the end of June. Christmas brings a market and a large star-lit old town. Winters are cold, but the interiors are warm. Allow about half an hour for the cathedral and an hour for the library.