Most visitors arrive in St. Gallen by train and head straight for the abbey. This guide follows that path and stops at six places along the way: the railway station, the red-floored Stadtlounge, the Broderbrunnen fountain, the Gallus fountain, the Abbey District with its cathedral and library, and the Marktplatz with the statue of Vadian. Together they show the town's two sides, the monastery it grew from and the trading town that grew rich on textiles.
St. Gallen railway station
The first station opened in 1856, when the railway reached the town. The present main building was put up between 1911 and 1913 to a design by the architect Alexander von Senger, in a neo-Baroque style that matched the confidence of the embroidery years. Next to it, on the site of the first station, stands the high-rise town hall, finished in 1976.
Between 2016 and 2018 the station square, the underpasses and the bus stops were rebuilt, and since December 2018 the narrow-gauge trains of the Appenzeller Bahnen run straight through the station instead of ending there.
- The binary clock above the entrance facing the station square, designed by the artist Norbert Möslang: it shows hours, minutes and seconds as lights in a grid of three rows and six columns.
- The contrast between the stone neo-Baroque station and the glass tower of the town hall beside it.
Red Square (Stadtlounge)
A few minutes from the station, in the Bleicheli district, the ground suddenly turns red. The Stadtlounge, also called Red Square, was designed by the artist Pipilotti Rist and the architect Carlos Martinez for Raiffeisen, whose Swiss headquarters stands here, and the city co-owns it. Completed in the mid-2000s, it covers streets, benches, a fountain and even sculptures with a red granulate, so that the whole block feels like an open-air living room.
- The cloud-shaped lamps, called bubbles, that hang above the square and seem to float.
- The furniture covered in the same red surface as the ground, from benches to sculptures.
Broderbrunnen
This fountain celebrates a very practical event: on 1 May 1895 water from Lake Constance first reached the houses of St. Gallen. It is named after Hans Broder, a cantonal judge who left money to the town in his will, and it was made by the sculptor August Bösch. It is known for its figures of nymphs and animals; the figures you see today are copies, installed in 2000.
- The lightly draped nymph at the top, with two more figures lying at her feet.
- The three children further down, riding a turtle, a dolphin and a goose.
Gallus fountain (Gallusbrunnen)
The town takes its name from Gallus, an Irish monk who, according to tradition, settled in the wooded valley of the Steinach around 612 and lived there as a hermit. His founding legend says that a bear brought him wood for his fire and was rewarded with bread; a bear still appears on the town's coat of arms. The fountain on Gallusplatz, just west of the cathedral, was made in 1936 by Rudolf Seitter and shows Gallus in his monk's habit on a column above an eight-sided basin.
- Gallus's knotted walking staff, and the old houses of Gallusplatz around the fountain, a quiet corner right beside the abbey.
Abbey District (Stiftsbezirk)
About a century after Gallus, the priest Otmar founded a monastery at his hermitage in 719, and it grew into one of the most important abbeys in Europe, with its own school, scriptorium and, later, its own principality. The abbey was dissolved in 1805, and its church later became the cathedral of the diocese of St. Gallen. The whole Abbey District has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983.
Today's buildings are late Baroque. The cathedral, with its twin towers, was rebuilt from 1755 into the late 1760s, and the library hall, designed by Peter Thumb, is a Rococo room of carved and polished wood, stucco and painted ceilings. The library holds around 2,100 manuscripts, about 400 of them more than a thousand years old, and the Plan of St. Gall, a drawing of an ideal monastery from the early 9th century that was never built.
- The Greek inscription over the library entrance, which is usually translated as healing place of the soul.
- Schepenese, an Egyptian woman from Thebes whose mummy and painted coffins came to St. Gallen in 1821 and now rest in the library hall.
- The slippers you put on over your shoes to protect the wooden floor of the library.
Marktplatz
The Marktplatz lies on the northern side of the old town and is one of its busiest open spaces, used for markets and served by many city buses. At its eastern end stands the Waaghaus, built in 1584 and 1585 as the town weigh house, where merchants' goods were weighed, taxed and stored; today the city parliament meets on its upper floor.
On the square stands the bronze statue of Vadian (Joachim von Watt, 1484 to 1551), the humanist, doctor and mayor who led St. Gallen into the Reformation. It was put up in 1904 and is the work of Richard Kissling, who also made the Alfred Escher monument in Zürich. In 2013 it was taken away for repairs, because its legs, filled with concrete in 1944, had cracked.
- The bronze Vadian on his pedestal, the town's tribute to its reformer.
- The gabled Waaghaus, whose open ground floor is used for markets and events.
How to see them in one walk
Leave the station by the main entrance, look back at the binary clock, and walk east to the Stadtlounge in the Bleicheli district. Continue into the old town to the Broderbrunnen, then through the lanes towards the Abbey District, stopping at the Gallus fountain on Gallusplatz before you enter the abbey courtyard. Visit the cathedral and the library, then walk north through the old town to finish on the Marktplatz with Vadian and the Waaghaus.
See St. Gallen with World City Trail
Our St. Gallen scavenger hunt turns the old town into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, starting at the railway station and ending at St. Mangen Church, and all six places in this guide are stops: the station, Red Square, the Broderbrunnen, the Gallus fountain, the abbey and the Marktplatz, along with the Textile Museum, the Ortsbürgergemeinde and St. Laurenzen. At each stop you solve a riddle and learn a story, at your own pace.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in St. Gallen, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the St. Gallen scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of St. Gallen →
Play the outdoor escape game in St. Gallen →
Facts checked in October 2026.