Hotel Gallo

Make sure that you will be in...

by barcodex

Make sure that you will be in a city centre. Sure, it's a bit complicated to visit St. Gallen and not to visit a city centre, because everything important, like train and bus stations, post office, shopping centers and restaurants are all in the city center. I liked the web of town streets - like in any ols European town, they are well stochastically organized, and any of them has its own face.

Gallussplatz

by Cristian_Uluru

Gallussplatz is big beautiful square in front of the Abbey of St. Gall. All around it you can see wonderful half-timbered houses and Baroque one. A very beautiful half-timbered house is the Zur Jagerei built in 1576, the Sum Grunen and Zum Greif was built in 1680 and have got sculputeres on the facade; the Stadthaus built in 1589 has got a Renaissance facade.

About the Stiftsbibliothek (Abbey Library)

by amsterdam_vallon

Within the same complex of buildings as the cathedral, and just adjacent to it, is the famous abbey library,or Stiftsbibliothek, one of the oldest libraries in Europe and classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site both for its stunning interior and for its huge collection of rare and unique medieval books and manuscripts. You enter the library beneath a sign reading, in Greek, psyches iatreion, or “Pharmacy of the Soul”. Ranged beside are dozens of pairs of oversized felt slippers – slip your shoed feet into a pair, to save the gorgeous inlaid wooden floor of the library from scuffing.

The 28-by-10-metre room is acclaimed as Switzerland’s finest surviving example of a Baroque secular interior, and the first glimpse of it as you enter is dizzying.

st. Gallen

by viajeras2

St. Gallen is both a canton and a city in the eastern part of Switzerland. In 610, an Irish monk called Gallus chose this spot for his hermitage. Later on, in 747, a Benedictine abbey was founded. With the addition of a library in the 9th century, it became a center of learning. The famous cathedral and abbey library are a must to visit. The whole abbey precinct was declared a World Cultural Heritage in 1983.

St. Gallen was an important producer of linen which was exported throughout Europe. St. Gallen's embroidery is known around the world. The town spreads over the nearby hills, which are scattered with huge blocks of buildings such as the Sankt Gallen Graduate School of Economics, Business and Public Administration (HSG), decorated by many artists from the 1960.

St. Gallen features one of the most picturesque old towns in Switzerland: many of the houses and buildings being from the 16th and 18th century, sometimes with painted facades, often adorned with wrought-iron signs and carved and painted wooden oriel windows. Walk along the pleasant alleys and browse through the many small and charming shops.

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will-care's new St.Gallen Page

by will-care

We embarked from the Franconian City of Bayreuth in early afternoon intending to stay overnight in Switzerland. Lots and lots of road construction between Bayreuth and Nuremburg made for slow going but the traffic finally melted away as we crossed rolling hills and meadows sometimes the only car on the road. In a very picturesque farm town we found one of the most automated gas stations we had ever seen. Of course we had to choose something from the elaborate Popsicle menu for a road snack.
Approaching the Austrian border the radio played Anton Karas’ “Theme from the Third Man” putting us in a very deep vacation mood. We were brought back to reality by the rather overpriced Austrian toll charged for just a few miles on their “well-policed” highways. We debated heading for Vaduz in Liechtenstein but decided to head for the Swiss city of St. Gallen instead. Arriving near six o’clock with no hotel we parked and set out on foot to find a place to sleep.
The registry desk at the Einstein Hotel looked at our casual road clothes with some dismay and suggested we might prefer the nearby Dom Hotel. (More about the Dom later.) This was good advice and within a few minutes we were checked in and planning where to go for dinner. Almost immediately there was a single thunderclap followed by what sounded like machine gun fire. Out on the balcony hailstones the size of marbles were pelting the windows and balconies. More lightning crackled. A five-minute delay would have had me out in the middle of this awful tempête. The storm had apparently chased everyone indoors and after the hail stopped we had a seemingly empty town to stroll as we pleased.