Since ancient time Sankt Gallen, the capital city of the canton of the same name, was well known for its magnificent abbey which was one of most important monastery in this region and was on my wish list to see for a long time. During my Switzerland tour, I took the Voralpen scenic train from Lucerne to Sankt Gallen, the scenery of pre-alpine region was really pretty and I highly recommended using this train as a mean of transportation to enter the city.

From the train station, it was very easy to reach the abbey by just walk along the lovely car free shopping street until you started to notice the huge complex on your right. The complex was very large with many buildings built encircled the cathedral. Actually I was quite disappointed with the complex's exterior, apart from the cathedral; these buildings were really plain with nothing significant to mention. The unbelievable greenish lawn and the two towers of the cathedral apse were the things to see. However for cathedral's interior, I was really impressed with the beautiful Rococo style and in my opinion, the green stucco decorating the naves were very unique as I had never seen this color in Rococo decoration before.

The monastic library was another highlight of this abbey, hiding in the very plain building both exterior and interior which made me not sure that I was in the correct place, but when I worn the big slippers, for protecting the wooden floor, and entered into the library, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of one of the most beautiful library in the world. The style of library was also Rococo with amazingly beautiful bookshelves and wonderful white stucco around the ceiling fresco, a real jewel of Switzerland. Sadly that photograph was not allowed.

I really enjoyed my day in Sankt Gallen, this city was a very nice place to visit, and the abbey was deserved to be a UNESCO World heritage Site. My only regret was that I had to cancel my plan to visit Richenau of Germany, another monastic WHS that claimed to have strong link with the abbey of Sankt Gallen due to the shopping street was very tempting with many local and international brands! But this maybe a good reason to revisit this area again in the near future!