Visit Date: 26 October 2015 Weather: Cloudy
From Liechtenstein to the northeastern city of Switzerland: St. Gallen
After enjoying the fine weather in Liechtenstein’s capital, Faduz, we will return to Switzerland. We chose St. Gallen in the northeastern part of Switzerland as our destination for this afternoon. It is home to the famous St. Gallen Abbey, which has been around since the Middle Ages and has been chosen as a World Heritage Site. The most existing building is from the Baroque era, and it is reputed to be very beautiful.
From Liechtenstein, we just took the highway and reached the city in about an hour. We parked our car in a public parking lot at the entrance of the old town and started sightseeing.
The city has a very Germanic (German speaking Switzerland) feel to it. It’s clean, very neat and easy to walk around. The only disappointment is the weather. It was such a nice day in Faduz.
もう少し詳しいこの街の説明については、「ザンクト・ガレン – スイス政府観光局」から引用させていただきます。
Although the monastery no longer functions as a monastery, it was recognized as a World Heritage Site in 1983 for its cathedral and church, which are said to be masterpieces of Baroque architecture; the library attached to the monastery, which is impressive for its beautiful Rococo-style hall; the world’s oldest architectural blueprints; and its valuable collection of approximately 170,000 books. The blueprints depict the existing library, which also played a role in publishing (manuscripts), as well as a beer brewery and a herb garden where herbs and other plants were cultivated and studied, telling the history of medieval Europe, where “knowledge” and “power” were concentrated around the monastery.
なお、この「スイス政府観光局」は、とても良く出来ていてしかも日本語版もあるので、スイス観光の際には閲覧をおすすめします。
To St. Gallen Abbey
We first headed to the area where this monastery is located.
Then we went to the monastery (but now the cathedral and library) entrance area. There was a plaque at the entrance, which was also chosen as a world heritage site.
The monastery library is a thing of supreme beauty.
The first place we chose to visit was the library, which is reputed to be very beautiful. It is said that it is often chosen as one of the most beautiful libraries in the world.
The entrance to the library was at the back of the church. It is on the left side of the picture below.
ところが、非常に残念なことに、内部は完全撮影禁止、それどころか土足も禁止という厳しさ。手荷物もチケットを買った後、コインロッカーに預けなければいけません。コインロッカーは無料で使えました。
So I couldn’t take a picture of it, so I’ll post a picture from wikipedia instead.
?BibliothekSG“ von Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen – Übertragen aus de.wikipedia nach Commons.. Lizenziert unter CC BY-SA 3.0 über Wikimedia Commons.
However, I really wanted to have a picture of the inside of the building, so I bought some postcards, which I usually don’t buy, but I was disappointed that the printing quality of all of them was poor.
Photography is allowed inside the cathedral.
On the other hand, the cathedral in the same area, of course you can go inside, but at the same time, it was OK to take photos.
This kind of emerald green interior seems to be rare. We took a rest here for a while. The cathedral is the best place to take a rest when you get tired.
With the monastery, the tour of St. Gallen was over for the moment. The weather recovered temporarily, but it was cloudy and chilly all the time, so I bought a latte at Starbucks and returned to the parking lot to warm up.
However, when I came back to the parking lot, I had to go back to the center of the city to withdraw Swiss Francs because the machine of the parking lot was only accepting Swiss Francs and not Euros. It was hard to find ATM, so I lost more time than I expected. This will have some influence on our schedule later.
とはいえ、まだまだ時間はあるので、もう一つの目的地に向けて出発です。（続く）
