We were waiting for the last weekend for almost a year! Last year, we attended the first Czechoslovak ball close to St. Gallen and we loved it so much that we purchased our tickets for this year as soon as they were available. We had a great night with our friends on Saturday and as we were staying in St. Gallen we wanted to explore it on Sunday.
We were back at the hotel before 2AM, so we had plenty of time to rest before the check out. Well, some of us did while others spent almost all night in the bathroom. I don't drink alcohol and my husband didn't drink too much either, so we even managed to get the breakfast in the morning! Before we left, we briefly met our friends to wish them a speedy recovery and off we went.
St. Gallen is less than an hour drive from where we live, but we don't go in the direction often, so we were glad that we had one day to spend there.
We visited St. Gallen only once before and it was many years ago, so we were not sure what to see or where to go. We were lucky to find a parking garage in the old town quickly, and when we got out of there we didn't know where to look first. St. Gallen has a charming old town with architecture similar to where we live. It is just much bigger. Well, much bigger in the sense of Switzerland. It only has about 75k inhabitants which is very small for other countries.
The Swiss are proud of their nation and it is not uncommon to see Swiss flags attached to the windows...
Gallusplatz is the meeting point if you get lost in the city. It is easy to find, and from there you can reach all the landmarks easily. Honestly, we didn't have any plan, but as the weather was amazing for February, we decided to simply walk around and enjoy the city.
It was around lunchtime, and people were sitting outside enjoying their meals. The weather was lovely, but still a bit cold for eating outside in my opinion. I guess they can't wait for spring to come.
I liked the wooden detail on many houses. They were painted in various colours and some windowsills were beautifully decorated. This looks like an Easter decoration to me, although I'm not so sure what it's meant to be.
This house looks exactly like our city hall. When the construction work is finished (if it is every finished) I will show it to you too.
St. Gallen has a long history and here we can see the architectural blend from various periods. And the St. Lawrence church is also coming in sight...
St. Lawrence church is a Protestant church that might be more than 1000 years old! It is not certain when it was founded, but it could be anywhere between the 9th and the 12th centuries.
Let's go inside!
I don't know how many entrances there are, but we followed other people to the side entrance and after we walked through a hall we entered the church and got to see this stunning painted interior.
I have visited so many churches, but I can't remember that any of them had the pipe organ behind the main altar. Maybe it's a thing in Protestant churches, but I'm not sure. However, it was amazing! I liked that the pipes are split in three sections and also that they have this royal-like decoration. I've been watching The Crown, so I see royal-like details everywhere now 😊
We were getting hungry, so we headed to a restaurant for lunch...
On the way we walked through the monastery, but it requires a separate post as we visited two museums and the church. There is so much to show you!
The restaurant which we chose is called Formidable Pelikan. It was not busy, so we could choose our table. Yes, we went inside as it's not warm enough for me to eat outside.
We started with a garden salad that was topped with potato peel chips. I love no-waste ideas and those chips were really good!
It was late in the afternoon and people were mainly ordering cakes and coffee. I had a feeling that we were the only ones waiting for meals. It took them almost one hour to serve us! I had a typical Swiss dish called Zurcher geschnetzeltes with rostis, but it didn't taste as good as it looked. It's like the chef forgot to season it.
But their coffee service was too cute!
It was a pleasant place and the food was ok, but we will probably not come back as it took more than 2 hours for lunch which is way too long.
When we finished our lunch it was already late and the sun started to set. We decided to walk back to the car as we had about one hour to drive home...
St. Gallen goes up the hill, and there is a hiking trail behind the houses which takes you through the forest and fields and you can enjoy the views of the city, mountains and lake Constance on the way...
On the way back we crossed Gallusplatz again. It's dominated by St. Gallus Fountain. The name St. Gallen goes back to Saint Gallus who belonged to a group of Irish monks who carried out misionary work in Europe.
From Gallusplatz it was only a short walk to get back to the car...
I would love to have such a small tower at home! Imagine putting there some coffee set and cute cushions... I could sit there hours and hours, and read a book, or just look out of the window.
Just a short walk up the hill and we will be there.
We didn't feel tired until we sat down in the car. Luckily, it was not so far to get home. We didn't even eat when we arrived, but went straight to bed 😊
See you next time...