Swiss Highlights
Hauterive Abbey seen from a wooded slope to the south: the long white conventual buildings with brown roofs and the church spire occupy the far end of a spring meadow valley, surrounded by forest, with the abbey's gardens and farm on the right.

“The 50 most beautiful sites” (Switzerland Tourism)

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80 member places · AG, AI, AR, BE, BL, BS, FR, GE, GL, GR, JU, LU, NE, NW, OW, SG, SH, SO, SZ, TG, TI, UR, VD, VS, ZG, ZH

Selection: places listed in “The 50 most beautiful sites” published by Switzerland Tourism, per the corpus data.

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Hauterive AbbeySaint Urban's AbbeyAmstegAndelfingenAppenzellAumüliAuvernierBauenBeromünsterBerthoud (Burgdorf)BremgartenCastasegnaBirsfelden power stationCité du LignonSimplon PassFrauenthal AbbeyDardagnyDiessenhofenEglisauEndingenEnnendaErlenbach im SimmentalErmatingenErnenFlüeli-RanftGiornicoGoetheanumGorges de la SuzeGorges de Sainte-VérèneGottliebenHalenHallauHeidenHembergHermanceBrissago IslandsKehrsitenKirchhofenLa Chaux-de-FondsLaufenLe PontLessocLeukLöwenburgMalansMerideMorcoteNeunkirchObermuttenOsignanoPleujouseBridges of Bruggen and the Sitter ValleyPrazRheinfeldenRiehenRomainmôtierRougemontRüeggisbergSaillonSaint-MauriceSaint-SaphorinSaint-UrsanneSankt ChrischonaSchlatt AISchwyzSempachSentSoazzaStansTaraspTaveyanneSchinznach BathsTrogenUfenauUnterseenSchlieren GasworksLorzenweid industrial siteValanginWerdenbergZiegelbrücke
Interactive map — schematic view of Switzerland.
Hauterive Abbey seen from a wooded slope to the south: the long white conventual buildings with brown roofs and the church spire occupy the far end of a spring meadow valley, surrounded by forest, with the abbey's gardens and farm on the right.

Cistercian abbey · Fribourg

Hauterive Abbey

Consecrated on 25 February 1138, suppressed in 1848, repopulated in 1939. Its towerless church, built between 1150 and 1160, has just come through a 2021-2025 restoration and reopened on 4 September 2025.

An aerial view of the former abbey of Saint-Urbain: the baroque church with two towers topped by red onion domes stands at the center, surrounded by long white conventual buildings arranged around two courtyards, with the village and fields around it.

Former abbey · Lucerne

Saint Urban's Abbey

Its choir stalls of 1700-1707 were sold as far as Scotland before being bought back in 1911 and reinstalled. Since 1873 the former monastery has housed a cantonal psychiatric institution.

Elevated view of Amsteg from a wooded slope: the village and its bell tower occupy the floor of the Reuss valley, the gravel-banked river crosses it, the motorway and road run along the left bank, and the Gotthard railway viaduct spans the ravine on the right, between steep slopes.

Transit village · Uri

Amsteg

A staging post in the 18th century, ruined by the coming of the railway, revived in the 20th by hydroelectricity: the power station of 1922 was replaced in 1998 by a plant cut inside the mountain.

The covered wooden bridge seen from the bank at a three-quarter angle: a long cladding of grey planks and a red tiled roof span the entire frame, carried by a stone pier planted in the middle of the Thur; the calm green water reflects the arch and the vegetation of the banks, and birds are perched in a row along the ridge of the roof.

Weinland town · Zurich

Andelfingen

Recorded in 1248, Andelfingen commanded one of the few crossings of the Thur: a toll, a bridge already widened in 1324, destroyed in 1799 and rebuilt in wood in 1814-1815. The town keeps a castle of 1780-1782 and a chancellery of 1697.

The painted gable of the pharmacy house in Appenzell, seen from below: the roofline traces an inverted curve accented with blue scales on a white background, two rows of white panels each bear a painted plant motif, small-paned windows with round stained-glass insets occupy the space between them, and flower boxes close off the bottom of the frame.

Village · Appenzell Innerrhoden

Appenzell

A township of 5,778 inhabitants at the foot of the Appenzell Prealps, whose name, recorded in 1071, means the abbot's cell. On its square, citizens still vote by show of hands.

The Aumüli mill and its outbuildings: a tall whitewashed half-timbered façade beneath a wide, steeply pitched brown tile roof with generous overhang, surrounded by a fenced garden where mauve butterfly bushes grow, with the forest on the southern slope of the Albis in the background.

Historic mill · Stallikon, Zurich

Aumüli

Probably built in the 9th century and recorded from 1328, the Aumüli keeps its water right, wheel and sawmill. Listed in 1993 and added to the ISOS register in 2012, it has milled spelt again since 2007.

The paved square of Auvernier under a stormy sky: in the centre, a stone-column fountain with its long basin; on the left, ochre-red and yellow façades with blue shutters along a lane sloping downward; on the right, a yellow stone wall bearing the large painted letters "Coste — vins en gros"; behind the tiled roofs, a slate spire and dark clouds.

Wine village · Neuchâtel

Auvernier

First recorded in 1011, Auvernier lived on fishing and on the vine. Its castle of 1559 keeps its vaulted cellars, the canton set up its school of viticulture here in 1888, and the law has protected the vineyard plots since 1974.

Elevated summer view from a stone path lined with a wooden railing, descending toward the village of Bauen nestled on the shore of Lake Lucerne; the onion-domed bell tower of St. Ida's church stands out among the roofs, facing the turquoise water of the lake enclosed by wooded cliffs and rocky peaks under a blue sky dotted with clouds.

Lakeshore, Nobel's factory, anthem

Bauen

On the west shore of Lake Uri, at the foot of the Bauenstöcke, the mild climate (figs, palm trees) contrasts with the industrial history of neighbouring Isleten, where Nobel produced dynamite and later blasting gelatin until 2003.

View of Beromünster from a sloping meadow: in the foreground an orchard and tall grass, then the brown tiled roofs of the town; at the center, the white spire of the collegiate church topped with a tall red steeple, and behind, the cultivated hills of the Wynental under a blue sky with white clouds.

Collegiate town · Lucerne

Beromünster

Two centres, the market Flecken and the canons' Stift, at 642 metres. Helias Helye finished the first dated book printed in Switzerland here on 10 November 1470; the transmitter that gave the place its present name fell silent in 2008.

Burgdorf Castle seen from below, at the end of the day: set on a rocky, vegetation-covered outcrop, a square keep with a steep roof, a pale residential wing with blue shutters, and a round tower capped with tiles, under a blue sky streaked with clouds; the raking light illuminates the south-facing façades.

Emmental town · Bern

Berthoud (Burgdorf)

The castle holds the sandstone spur above the town; its name appears as early as 1084. In 1273 the Goldene Handfeste set the town's law in writing, in force for five centuries. In 1899 the line to Thun made it a laboratory of electric traction.

Panorama of Bremgarten from the opposite bank of the Reuss, at the end of an autumn day: on the left, a covered wooden bridge with a long tiled roof crosses the river from a white gate tower; a foaming weir crosses the current along its full width; above the embankment wall, the town's houses line up in ochre, yellow and white facades, dominated by a tall clock tower with a red roof and two church spires. The river, smooth and dark, reflects the whole town in the lower half of the image.

Small town · Aargau

Bremgarten

The old town sits in a bend of the Reuss, still crossed by a covered wooden bridge. Four great markets set the year: those of Easter and Whitsun are over 750 years old, and the Christmas market, begun in 1995, lines up more than 300 stalls.

Elevated view from a hillside over the stone roofs of the village, clustered around a bell tower, nestled in a wooded valley closed off by peaks veiled in mist; in the foreground, a flowering meadow and tall purple flowers border the viewpoint.

Border village · Val Bregaglia

Castasegna

Castasegna, the lowest village of the Graubünden Bregaglia, first recorded in 1374, groups Villa Garbald (1862-1864, Gottfried Semper) and the Roccolo tower (2004, Miller & Maranta), near the former largest chestnut forest in Europe.

From downstream, in the warm light of late day: the machine hall stretches above the Rhine under a sawtooth roof, its glazed facade punctuated by V-shaped mullions; on the left, two dam piers carry dark green cabins pierced by two round openings, and the walkway on the dam reveals a few figures. The nearly still green water of the river casts its reflection.

Run-of-river plant · Rhine

Birsfelden power station

Four Kaplan turbines under a 12-metre head, two locks for the barges, and over the whole thing a path open to walkers and cyclists. Between 2006 and 2015 the plant produced an average of 570 GWh a year.

From a tree-lined concrete esplanade, the long Lignon housing block, its facade a light-and-dark checkerboard, tiers away on the left, while a tower in the same checkerboard pattern rises on the right against a blue summer sky.

Modernist estate · Geneva

Cité du Lignon

Built between 1962 and 1971 on former farmland in Vernier, the estate holds 2,780 dual-aspect flats and two towers, one of them 91 metres high, on just 8% of its ground.

Late afternoon on the flat top of the pass: in the foreground a short-grass slope turned golden by the raking light, a small dark lake in the middle of the peat bog, and the long ochre building of the hospice standing alone on the plateau to the right. Behind, the ridgelines rise in successively bluer layers under a deep sky streaked with large cumulus clouds.

Road pass · Valais

Simplon Pass

The road crosses at 2,006 metres, a little above the geographical col. Opened between 1801 and 1805 by Napoleon's decree, it runs from Brig to the Ossola valley and takes you from the Rhône to the Po.

Frontal view of Frauenthal Convent from the entrance courtyard: a white convent building with a brown tiled roof and dormer windows, an arched porch at the center, flanked by two large leafy trees; partly cloudy blue sky, with a paved path and green benches in the foreground.

Cistercian abbey · Zug

Frauenthal Abbey

Traditionally founded in 1231, with no surviving charter, the abbey went through the 1528 Reformation before being restored by Abbess Anna von Fulach in 1552. Since 2021 it has been a civil-law foundation, still home to a community of nuns.

A drone aerial view of the village of Dardagny taken in late afternoon: the Genevan château, with its slate roof and central turret, occupies the center of the image, surrounded by the church tower and the village's tiled roofs; all around stretch rows of vines, cultivated fields and copses, under a low, raking light that lengthens the shadows.

Wine-growing village · Geneva

Dardagny

The largest château in the canton of Geneva, rebuilt by the banker Jean Vasserot in 1723, holds the centre of the village; in 1978 the Wakker Prize honoured the conservation of the site, a member since 2021 of the Most Beautiful Villages of Switzerland.

Elevated view of Diessenhofen from a height on the opposite bank: the Rhine looping through, the covered wooden bridge on the left, a passenger boat before the quay, the tightly packed roofs of the town and the church bell tower at the center, under a summer sky with cumulus clouds.

Rhine town · Thurgau

Diessenhofen

Raised to town status in 1178 by the counts of Kyburg, Diessenhofen has kept its medieval street plan, its Seal Tower with a zodiac dial, and its covered wooden bridge across the Rhine into Germany.

The Eglisau waterfront seen from the bridge: a row of houses with red wooden balconies plunging into the blue Rhine, an onion-domed bell tower in the middle of the row, a vine-planted slope above, and the river receding between wooded hillsides.

Rhine wine town · Zurich

Eglisau

On the north bank of the Rhine, Eglisau lines its houses at the water's edge below vineyard slopes. The dam built between 1916 and 1920 raised the river by 8.5 metres, taking with it the old bridge and the houses along the bank.

Black-and-white aerial photograph of the village of Endingen, nestled in the hollow of a wooded valley. The rooftops of the old town cluster around a central axis, surrounded by rows of orchards and sloping meadows; a forested ridge closes off the horizon in the background, under a clear sky. A corner of an airplane wing appears in the upper left corner of the shot.

Historic Jewish commune · Aargau

Endingen

With no Catholic or Reformed church, the village's only religious building is its synagogue, built in 1764 and rebuilt in 1852 after the 1802 pogrom. Ruth Dreifuss, President of the Confederation in 1999, was born here in 1940.

A brick factory chimney stands before a pyramidal mountain entirely gilded by the low light of a winter sunset, its illuminated face in yellow and orange contrasting with a blue-violet sky streaked with long, thin clouds. In the foreground, industrial and residential buildings with snow-covered roofs, surrounded by a snow-covered kitchen garden; a thin crescent moon is visible at the top right of the sky.

Former industrial village · Glarus

Ennenda

2,684 inhabitants, a Gemeindehaus built like a palace in 1889-1890, the chocolate maker Läderach: Ennenda, merged into Glarus since 2011, was carried first by the slate-table trade, then by textiles.

The Reformed church of Erlenbach im Simmental, with its white facade and pointed spire, at the foot of the Bernese Prealps.

Gothic frescoes, birthplace of the Amish

Erlenbach im Simmental

Whitewashed over during the Reformation (1527/28), the church's Gothic frescoes were thereby preserved until their restoration in 1931-32. An organ built in 1812 by Johannes Stölli completes this Bernese heritage.

Orange sunset over the Untersee: backlit, the built-up shoreline of Ermatingen and its poplars stand out in silhouette above the water, where about ten swans are swimming; on the horizon, the hills of the Hegau.

Lakeside village · Thurgau

Ermatingen

First named in 724 in the founding charter of Reichenau Abbey, Ermatingen lines up its half-timbered houses along the water. Its carnival, the Groppenfasnacht, falls on Laetare Sunday, three weeks before Easter.

An aerial view of the village of Ernen in spring: the brown houses clustered around the white church occupy a terrace of short grass, bordered above by a larch forest and open on the left to the Rhône valley and snow-capped peaks.

Goms village · Valais

Ernen

Around a square lined with houses dated from 1511 to 1762 stand a church whose choir was finished in 1518 and the Tellenhaus of 1576, which carries a William Tell scene painted in 1578.

Under a grey sky with low clouds, the Saint Charles Borromeo chapel crowns a wooded knoll with its red roof and onion-domed spire; below, the brown-timbered Paxmontana inn flies flags, surrounded by parked cars and sloping green meadows.

Pilgrimage village · Obwalden

Flüeli-Ranft

Niklaus von Flüe (1417-1487) withdraws to the Ranft in 1467. The upper chapel is consecrated in 1469, the lower chapel built in 1501. Canonised on 15 May 1947 under Pius XII, he gave his name to the village, called only Flüeli until 1966.

Old black-and-white photograph, taken from a vine-planted slope. On the left, a stone church with a rounded apse and square bell tower, pierced by narrow twin windows, overlooks vine pergolas and a few dark-roofed houses, including a large light-colored building with shutters. At the center, the valley opens toward a snow-capped range, under a sky where large cumulus clouds are building. On the right, a stone bridge with a large arch spans the riverbed in front of a wooded slope and a few houses. In the foreground, low rows of vines and wooden stakes.

Ticino village · Leventina

Giornico

The river holds an island here, reached by two bridges of the Middle Ages. Apart from the village, the La Congiunta museum, built by Peter Märkli, contains nothing but reliefs and sculptures by Hans Josephsohn, made between 1950 and 1991.

Overview of the Goetheanum at the end of the day: the monumental concrete facade, with its overlapping angular and curved volumes, is pierced by tall windows and dark wooden doors aligned on the ground floor; a few shrubs line the entrance, under a blue sky streaked with pink and golden clouds.

Monument · Dornach, Solothurn

Goetheanum

The first building, in wood, burned down on New Year's night 1923. The second, raised from 1925 to 1928, was the first monumental building in reinforced concrete; its great hall was not inaugurated until 1998.

A metal walkway clings to the rock face of a narrow, wooded gorge, overlooking a turquoise torrent cascading between large boulders; the dark, moss-covered rock frames a break of light and green foliage at the top of the frame.

Limestone gorge · Biel, Bern

Gorges de la Suze

A footpath was laid out there in 1889; the gorge was placed under partial nature protection from 1927. The name Taubenloch, attested since 1532, remains of uncertain origin despite several competing explanations.

The autumn path leading to the hermitage of Saint Verena winds between two limestone walls pierced with small caves, beneath a canopy of russet and golden foliage; in the background, the white chapel with its red bell turret nestles against the rock, surrounded by a fenced garden and an old-fashioned street lamp.

Gorge hermitage · Solothurn

Gorges de Sainte-Vérène

Landscaped as a Romantic garden in the late 18th century by the French diplomat Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, the gorge is ISOS-listed, and its hermitage is a class A Swiss cultural property.

Gottlieben Castle, with its pale facade of crenellated gables and two turrets topped with red conical roofs, stands on the bank of the Seerhein behind a screen of weeping willows and trees with pink and green foliage; its reflection extends across the calm water under a summer sky dotted with large cumulus clouds.

Seerhein village · Thurgau

Gottlieben

The village was fortified in 1251 by bishop Eberhard von Waldburg. Its castle served as a prison: Jan Hus and antipope John XXIII were shut up there in 1415, during the Council of Constance.

An aerial view of the Siedlung Halen: the flat-roofed row houses line up in terraces in the hollow of a densely wooded valley, almost hidden beneath the canopy.

Row-house estate · Bern

Halen

78 dwellings and 5 studios in three terraced rows, exposed concrete, gardens closed off by walls: Atelier 5's Siedlung Halen is listed as a cultural property of national significance.

View of the village of Hallau nestled among the vineyards, with its slender bell tower rising above the rooftops, surrounded by a checkerboard of fields and meadows stretching to the horizon.

Wine village · Schaffhausen

Hallau

Set at about 421 metres north of the Rhine, some fifteen kilometres from Schaffhausen, Hallau has lived from its vines since the thirteenth century. Encyclopedic sources call it the largest wine village of eastern Switzerland.

Elevated view of Heiden and Lake Constance: in the foreground the roofs of the town and a red rack railway train, then the blue waters of the lake, dotted with a few sailboats, stretching to the opposite shore.

Village · Appenzell Ausserrhoden

Heiden

A township of 4,383 inhabitants spread between 400 and 790 metres, a cure resort since 1848, linked to the lakeshore by a rack railway. Henri Dunant spent his last eighteen years here.

View of the lush green alpine pastures of Hemberg, dotted with isolated farms, with the snow-capped Säntis and Alpstein range rising on the horizon under a blue sky.

Mountain village · St Gallen

Hemberg

Made a parity village in 1526, Hemberg had Catholics and Protestants worship in the same building for two and a half centuries, until the two churches of 1779 and 1782. The place ranges from 709 to 1,139 metres.

View from the heights of the town of Hermance, over tiled roofs and a weeping willow, with an antenna rising above neighboring roofs, toward calm Lake Geneva and the opposite shore lined with hills, under a clear sky.

Medieval town · Geneva

Hermance

A new town laid out by the lords of Faucigny, Hermance still has its ring wall, the round keep raised around 1337-1338 and a harbour of 159 berths. Savoyard until the Treaty of Turin of 1816, it covers just 1.44 km².

At blue hour, the small wooded island of Brissago stands out against calm Lake Maggiore: the lit windows of a villa pierce through the foliage, their golden reflections stretching across the water under a sky streaked with pink clouds.

Botanical islands · Ticino

Brissago Islands

San Pancrazio, the larger, carries a subtropical garden and is reached by boat. Sant'Apollinare, the smaller, stays closed and keeps the ruins of a Romanesque church. The canton of Ticino and five partners bought them in 1949.

Oblique black-and-white aerial photograph, low light of late day: a steep wooded slope occupies the right half of the frame, an inclined track climbs it diagonally from the lake shore to the upper left. Below, a sloping meadow dotted with fruit trees descends toward a few isolated chalets, then toward a cluster of buildings by the water where a boat is moored to a jetty; the lake stretches out, calm, in the foreground.

Lakeside village · Nidwalden

Kehrsiten

The village, at 483 m and with its own postal code (6365), had several lakeside hotels in the 1950s — the Baumgarten, the Seeblick, the Wilhelm Tell — documented by ETH-Bibliothek aerial photographs.

Low-angle view of the church of Saints Peter and Paul in Sarnen, in the Kirchhofen district: its two onion-domed towers stand out against a vast sky heavy with clouds, with an alpine peak visible in the background and a few village rooftops at the foot of the building.

Historic quarter · Obwalden

Kirchhofen

A mill first recorded in 1534 still turns here as a restaurant; Count Ulrich von Lenzburg had ceded his rights over Sarnen's church and over the "Unterer Hof" to Beromünster monastery, and that estate's name later gave the quarter its own.

Winter aerial view of La Chaux-de-Fonds: under a deep blue sky, the town stretches its long parallel streets along the bottom of a snow-covered valley, the white roofs forming a regular grid between the pastures and fir forests of the Jura, the horizon closed off in the distance by a sea of fog.

Watchmaking town · Neuchâtel

La Chaux-de-Fonds

At close to 1,000 metres, in a valley with no surface water, the streets cross at right angles. The 2009 listing honours no monument but a plan: that of a town where workshop and dwelling shared the same building.

Asphalt-paved street of the town of Laufen in vertical perspective, lined with pastel-toned façades — pink, almond green, ochre — with shutters and signs; a few passers-by and café tables enliven the sidewalk under a blue sky with scattered clouds.

Town on the Birs · Basel-Landschaft

Laufen

After refusing in 1974 to join the canton of Jura, Laufen opted in 1994 for Basel-Landschaft; its main street, closed by two gates, is lined by the church of Sainte-Catherine, built from 1698.

Panorama of the hamlet of Le Pont from the shore, at the northern end of Lac de Joux: a row of white and brown houses lines the pebbly shore, two boats moored to buoys in the foreground, a wooded hill and then a bare summit close off the horizon under a blue sky with scattered clouds.

Hamlet on Lac de Joux · Vaud

Le Pont

On an estate once named Champ du Port, a bridge built in the 17th century by Le Lieu and Le Chenit gave the hamlet its name. The railway brought French families; the Grand Hôtel rose in 1900-1901.

The village fountain of Lessoc, topped by a broad, bell-shaped shingle roof supported by four stone pillars, stands on the paved square in front of houses with green shutters and flower boxes; in the background, the Fribourg Prealps stand out under an evening sky streaked with pink clouds.

Gruyère village · Fribourg

Lessoc

Recorded from 1115, Lessoc broke away from the parish of Grandvillard only in 1643. Its church and its octagonal fountain of 1796 are built of the grey-white limestone veined with green quarried on the spot, the Lessoc 'marble'.

Colorized historical aerial view of Leuk: the town occupies a wooded promontory, its brown-roofed houses and pointed church spire clustered around a square turreted fortified house, between terraced vineyards and a coniferous slope; a winding road crosses the village in the foreground.

Medieval town · Upper Valais

Leuk

Recorded in 515, Leuk keeps its bishop's castle, its Gothic church and its charnel house. Its 55.36 km² municipality holds both banks of the Rhône and takes in the Finges pine forest and the Illgraben fan.

Slightly elevated view of the fortified Löwenburg estate: a long whitewashed building with a brown tiled roof, pierced by rows of shuttered windows, extends toward a chapel with buttresses and a corner turret; a lawn crossed by a gravel path draws the eye toward the ensemble, under a clear blue sky, with a few trees on the right of the frame.

Hamlet and ruin · Jura

Löwenburg

The hamlet of Löwenburg, the only German-speaking part of the commune of Pleigne, combines a castle ruin founded in the 10th century with a 16th-century fortified farm; the Christoph Merian Foundation of Basel has restored it since 1956.

The tower house of Malans, a former fortified dwelling with battlements, rises amid terraced vineyards; in the background, the wooded slope of the Fläscherberg overlooks the valley under a summer sky.

Wine village · Grisons

Malans

The village centre and Bothmar Castle, whose central wing dates from the 16th century, are cultural properties of national significance. The Gothic church of 1469 received rococo stuccowork in 1773; the town hall keeps a council room from 1685.

The ochre façade of the village church of Meride, flanked by its bell tower with an onion-domed steeple and a statue in a niche above the portal; on the wet paved square reflecting an end-of-day sky, a stone fountain and flower pots stand before the entrance, a tree on the right.

Village · Ticino

Meride

Recorded as early as 852, Meride long lived off the departure of its stucco workers and painters for northern Europe. Its land runs up to the summit of Monte San Giorgio, World Heritage listed in 2003 for its fossils.

An aerial view of Morcote: the houses lined up along the shore of Lake Lugano, the church of Santa Maria del Sasso and its bell tower on the wooded slope above the village.

Ticino · Lake Lugano

Morcote

Morcote is strung along the shore of Lake Lugano, facing Italy. Above the roofs stands the church of Santa Maria del Sasso; between them, a stairway of 404 steps and a cemetery of 1750.

The village of Neunkirch nestled between wheat fields and orchards, its golden onion-domed bell tower rising above the rooftops, backed by wooded hills under a summer sky dotted with large clouds.

Planned small town · Schaffhausen

Neunkirch

Destroyed and then rebuilt in one go, it has kept its rectangle of four parallel streets. Long held by the bishops of Constance, it was sold to Schaffhausen in 1525 for 8,500 guilders.

A sloping lane seen in a straight vista between two rows of dark brown wooden houses with open shutters, leading to a small wooden church topped with a pointed steeple, under a cloudless blue sky.

Walser hamlet · Grisons

Obermutten

Part of Thusis since 2017, Obermutten sits at 1,864 metres on the slope of the Muttnerhorn. A fire destroyed seventeen houses there in 1946; the hamlet later gained unexpected social-media fame in 2011.

Hamlet listed by ISOS · Ticino

Osignano

On the old mule track linking Agno to Bellinzona, at the foot of Monte Tamaro, the hamlet lines up two rows of stone or rendered rural houses, the oldest from the 17th-18th centuries, around a chapel dedicated to Saint Roch.

Pleujouse Castle and its round tower rise above a grove of bare, frost-covered trees, with the small adjoining stone house, under a clear blue winter sky.

Castle village · Ajoie

Pleujouse

At 580 metres, between forested heights, Pleujouse amounts to one street. The village formed around its fortress, which passed to the bishopric of Basel at the end of the 14th century and was rebuilt after the fire of 1980.

Old black-and-white photograph, captioned "Sitter & Krälzerenbrücke bei Bruggen, St. Gallen": a multi-arched stone viaduct spans the Sitter in the background, under a hazy light. In the foreground, the river's weir dam forms a series of small white cascades across the full width of the frame. On the right, steep-roofed houses line the water's edge among the trees; on the left, a stone wall and a stony bank.

Heritage landscape · St. Gallen

Bridges of Bruggen and the Sitter Valley

Around Bruggen, at the gates of St. Gallen, an 8.2 km path links eighteen 18th-20th century bridges: timber from 1780, stone from 1811, a 100-metre railway viaduct opened in 1910, through the wooded gorges of the Sitter.

Seen from Lake Murten, the village of Praz lines up its red-tiled roofed houses at the foot of a terraced vineyard hillside; in the foreground, green reeds border calm water under an almost cloudless blue sky.

Winegrowing village of the Vully · Fribourg

Praz

Praz belonged to the lordship of Morat until 1484. Its patrician winegrowers' houses have earned the site a national heritage listing. Since 1981, the Vully grape harvest festival has been held there every year in late September.

The old town of Rheinfelden seen from the opposite bank of the Rhine at the end of the day: an unbroken row of brown-tiled-roof houses runs down to the water's edge, a square tower with a pointed roof and pinkish render stands out on the left, and the white steeple with its green dome dominates the row of houses on the right. The grey-green Rhine fills the entire lower half of the image beneath a pale blue sky.

Town on the Rhine · Aargau

Rheinfelden

Two battles carried its name, in 1638 and 1678, and the French dismantled it in 1744. At the close of every year a brotherhood born of a vow made in 1541 sings before the town's fountains.

The Fondation Beyeler in Riehen: a long pavilion with reddish stone pillars, topped by a suspended glass roof, extends behind a garden of trees in autumn colours.

Border commune · Basel-Stadt

Riehen

22,534 inhabitants on 10.86 km², a quarter woodland and a quarter farmland, a German border curling around it to the north: Riehen is as much a large village as a suburb of Basel.

The former abbey church of Romainmôtier seen from the southwest on a summer afternoon: the tall gable of golden stone, marked by a frieze of blind arcades, is buttressed by a long slanting support; behind it stand the low nave, the gallery of Gothic arches and the square bell tower with twin bays topped by a slate spire, against a blue sky filled with large white clouds and a wooded hill.

Cluniac village · Vaud

Romainmôtier

The former abbey church of Saint Peter and Paul towers over a few sloping streets in the bottom of the Nozon valley. Handed to Cluny around 929, the Romanesque church is now a Reformed temple and a cultural property of national importance.

The Romanesque church of Rougemont: the octagonal bell tower, with its sawtooth cornice and pointed spire, rises above the brown-tiled nave, adjoined by a neighbouring farm building, under a pale blue sky.

Pays-d'Enhaut village · Vaud

Rougemont

Founded around 1073-1085 around a Cluniac priory, Rougemont keeps an 11th-century Romanesque church and chalets with carved façades; a member since 2017 of the Most Beautiful Villages of Switzerland.

The stone remains of Rüeggisberg priory, Romanesque arcades and wall sections standing on a green lawn, with wooded hills on the horizon under a blue sky.

Village and Cluniac priory · Bern

Rüeggisberg

Founded around the mid-11th century by two monks sent by Abbot Hugues de Cluny, the priory of Rüeggisberg, attested as early as 1075, was never completed to its planned five-apse design before being suppressed in 1484.

The medieval village of Saillon clinging to its hillside, dominated by its round tower, with the snow-capped peaks of the Valais Alps outlined behind clouds, above orchards and vineyards.

Medieval town · Valais

Saillon

The keep stands outside the walls: the castle hill was too narrow to take it. Below, the quarry yielded from 1873 a banded marble that Charles Garnier had laid in the Paris Opera the following year.

Elevated summer view of Saint-Maurice, taken from a high point to the south: the town occupies the narrow plain between the emerald-green Rhône, bordered by grassy embankments on the left, and a steep limestone cliff on the right, pierced by a road tunnel; at the center, the bell towers of the abbey and the town stand out among the roofs; in the distance, under a clear blue sky, a sharp rocky peak — the Dents du Midi — dominates the valley.

Lock on the Rhône · Valais

Saint-Maurice

A stage on the Via Francigena recorded as early as 990, locked by the Château des Gouverneurs and its 12th-century bridge over the Rhône, the town burned down in 1693 before planting, first in Valais, a liberty tree in 1798.

The village of Saint-Saphorin nestled between the terraced vineyards of Lavaux and Lake Geneva, gathered around its church bell tower, with the Alpine range rising in the background beyond the lake.

Wine village · Vaud

Saint-Saphorin

The original village, at the water's edge, was destroyed by the Tauredunum landslide in 563. Rebuilt higher up, it gathered around a church raised between 1517 and 1521, whose floor still covers Roman remains.

The medieval multi-arched bridge of Saint-Ursanne spans the green waters of the Doubs, in front of the tiled-roof houses and tower of the old town, set against a wooded hillside of the Jura.

Medieval small town · Jura

Saint-Ursanne

Born around a Benedictine abbey, it keeps its Romanesque collegiate church, its cloister and burgher houses from the 14th to the 16th century. At 440 metres, between wooded cliffs and river, it left its isolation only in 1877.

The Sankt Chrischona church seen through the foliage: its slender spire topped with a cross and its tile-roofed nave rise from a setting of lush green trees, under a blue sky dotted with clouds.

Religious site · Basel-Stadt

Sankt Chrischona

On the Dinkelberg, at 522 metres, the highest church in canton Basel-Stadt stands over a walled cemetery and mission buildings founded in 1840; its tower platform, up 71 steps, opens a panorama over the Vosges, the Black Forest, the Jura and the Alps.

The village of Schlatt AI with its onion-domed church surrounded by traditional Appenzell houses, set on a lush green meadow.

Ridge village · Appenzell

Schlatt AI

The name is written around 1200, as Slatte, for a pasture on a slope. The road to Appenzell came only in 1898, and the church was consecrated on 12 June 1912. The site is listed in the ISOS inventory under number 0391.

The historic square of Schwyz with its patrician houses and statue, dominated by the rocky Mythen peaks illuminated in the distance.

Capital below the Mythen · Schwyz

Schwyz

The main square, one of the finest baroque squares in Switzerland, lies at the foot of the Grand Mythen (1899 m) and the Petit Mythen (1811 m). Schwyz has housed the Confederation's earliest archives since 1291.

Colorized historical aerial view of Sempach, a lakeside village surrounded by orchards and fields, on the shore of Lake Sempach.

Battle town · Lucerne

Sempach

On 9 July 1386, the Battle of Sempach saw the Lucerners and their allies defeat the Habsburgs; the Sempach Pact was signed there in 1393. The town received the Wakker Prize in 2017 for preserving its old town.

Elevated view of the Inn valley from the heights of Sent: the river winds between green meadows and coniferous forests, a small lake glistens in the foreground, and snow-capped peaks close off the horizon under a changeable sky.

Village · Grisons

Sent

Recorded as early as 930, Sent occupies a terrace at about 1,440 metres above the Inn. Its houses carry sgraffito and the curved gable that took the village's name; the slope below them is terraced and lined with hedges.

The church of Soazza overlooks the village from its grassy spur, at the top of a stone staircase; in the foreground, a structure of metal beams stands in the grass, between wooded slopes and a clear sky.

Mesolcina village · Grisons

Soazza

324 inhabitants on 46.4 km², more than half of it forest, a church with a striped bell tower on its spur, a frescoed hospice: Soazza holds the hinge between upper and lower Mesolcina.

The Winkelriedhaus in Stans under snow: a pale plastered façade with three levels of arcaded loggias and a red tile roof, surrounded by snow-laden trees, with a snow-covered summit in the background under a blue sky.

Below the Stanserhorn · Nidwalden

Stans

In September 1798, French troops killed 414 residents there, including about a hundred women and twenty-six children, in response to the canton's resistance. Today Stans also lives on aviation, with the Pilatus Aircraft plant.

Tarasp Castle rises above a wooded slope over a small lake, surrounded by green meadows and rocky peaks, under a blue sky dotted with white clouds.

Engadine village · Grisons

Tarasp

Tarasp has no centre: its hamlets are spread along the right bank of the Inn, around the rock the castle crowns. Catholic in a Reformed valley, the lordship stayed Austrian until 1803.

The Taveyanne alpine chalet, entirely clad in weathered grey wood shingles, with its gallery on posts and its whitewashed base, at the edge of a green meadow bordered by a wooden fence.

Alpine pasture hamlet · Vaud Alps

Taveyanne

The hamlet, attested from 1270, burned down with Gryon in 1719; 57 chalets were rebuilt, of which about thirty remain. Not connected to the power grid, it is listed in ISOS and protected by a nature-reserve covenant signed by the commune in 1970.

The elongated classical façade of the Schinznach spa, with blue-grey shutters and a hipped roof, stands amid lawn and trees clad in autumn colours, at the end of a drive leading to the entrance.

Thermal baths · Aargau

Schinznach Baths

A sulphur spring buried by a flood in 1670 and found again in 1691 on the other bank: from it came a cure establishment, a park and a chapel — and, in 1761, the first meetings of the Helvetic Society.

The village of Trogen, dominated by its church bell tower and a large white building with a pentagonal floor plan, stretches along a wooded hillside surrounded by rolling green hills.

Village · Appenzell Ausserrhoden

Trogen

Trogen became the capital of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in 1597 and lines its square with the Zellweger family's palaces, built between 1747 and 1809 from the textile trade. The Landsgemeinde met here until it was abolished in 1997.

On the shore of Lake Zurich, a dark half-timbered barn and a white manor house stand next to the Romanesque tower-porch of Ufenau church, surrounded by trees in autumn colors and reeds in the foreground.

Monastic island · Lake Zurich

Ufenau

Otto I gave the island to Einsiedeln Abbey in 965. The church of Saints Peter and Paul was consecrated in 1141. Knight Ulrich von Hutten died here in 1523. In 2012, the site's protected status blocked a restaurant by Peter Zumthor.

Along the turquoise waters of the Aare, the houses of Unterseen line up behind a row of trees, overlooked by the church bell tower, with the snow-covered peaks of the Bernese Oberland on the horizon.

Bödeli town · Bern

Unterseen

Built on the north bank of the Aare facing Interlaken, Unterseen burned in 1364 and again in 1470; Bern had it rebuilt around a central town house. Its log façades date from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.

The clock tower of the former Gaswerk Schlieren power station, built of pale stone with a conical roof of orange and grey diamond tiles and two visible clock faces, rises above the yellow-and-brick hall of the neighbouring Kraftcentrale; the sky is blue, dotted with large white clouds, and a few cars are parked in front of the building.

Former gasworks · Zurich

Schlieren Gasworks

Opened in 1898 and expanded through 1909, the Schlieren gasworks produced up to 250,000 m³ of gas a day before closing in 1974. Its gasometer now houses a museum and a working steam engine.

The industrial building of Lorzenweid, with its white façade of arcaded windows and hipped roof topped by a small bell turret, is reflected together with the neighbouring turbine house in the calm waters of the canal, under a blue sky with white clouds.

Former mill on the Lorze, ISOS site

Lorzenweid industrial site

The complex sits on the Lorze, whose hydraulic power once drove the mill's turbines; the weir of the Hagendorn power station survives on the river, alongside a road bridge and a wooden bridge.

A street in the old town of Valangin, lined with cream, white and beige facades with red shutters; at the far end stand the pointed-roofed gate tower bearing a clock and the slender bell tower of the collegiate church, while a car and a cyclist travel along the cobbled roadway.

Village · Neuchâtel

Valangin

The castle holds the rock that commands the passage; the bourg was founded below it around 1330, the collegiate church consecrated in 1505. In 1853 the beds described here gave their name to the Valanginian.

Lake Werdenberg at dusk, its calm waters reflecting a pink and orange sky; in the distance on the shore, the castle can be glimpsed among the trees and the rooftops of the town, with reeds and rocks in the foreground.

Fortified town · St. Gallen

Werdenberg

Market rights here are attested since 1289. The county of Werdenberg changed hands several times before being sold to Glarus in 1517; it joined St. Gallen in 1803. The castle has hosted a festival since 1985.

A turquoise-watered river winds between a left bank lined with autumn-foliaged trees, with an industrial chimney and a small bridge, and a right bank occupied by a large pale building with a brown roof; snow-capped peaks stand out in the distance under a clear blue sky.

Village split by a canal · Glarus/SG

Ziegelbrücke

The Linth Canal splits Ziegelbrücke in two: station and railway junction on the St. Gallen side, the Fritz & Caspar Jenny mill (1833), listed in the ISOS inventory, on the Glarus side.