Swiss Highlights
A ray of light falls almost vertically between the tall dark walls of the Tamina Gorge, lighting up the mossy rock face and the pebbly bed of the torrent; a small wooden shelter is tucked onto a ledge at the foot of the fissure.

St. Gallen

Regions

The canton of St. Gallen brings together 6 places referenced on Swiss Highlights: 1 natural site, 1 heritage or cultural site, 4 villages and 0 towns.

Not to miss

A ray of light falls almost vertically between the tall dark walls of the Tamina Gorge, lighting up the mossy rock face and the pebbly bed of the torrent; a small wooden shelter is tucked onto a ledge at the foot of the fissure.

Limestone gorge · St. Gallen

Gorges de la Tamina

Between Pfäfers and Bad Ragaz, the Tamina carved an 8.4 km gorge over 15,000 years, spanned by natural rock bridges; at its head, a 36.6°C spring, tapped since 1350, now feeds the baths of Bad Ragaz.

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.

The Hauptgasse in Lichtensteig at the end of the day, in raking golden light: painted facades with colourful shutters and arcades on stone pillars in the foreground; in the centre, a golden onion-domed tower with a red conical roof crowns the former district building (Bezirksgebäude); the cobbled street descends toward more old houses.

Medieval small town · St Gallen

Lichtensteig

Recorded in 1228, the town gained charters of liberties from 1400. The county passed to the Abbey of St Gallen in 1468, which stationed its reeve there until 1798. Wakker Prize 2023, it joined Switzerland's Most Beautiful Villages in 2016.

Family suggestions

Related collections

Best Swiss Villages members · “The 50 most beautiful sites” (Switzerland Tourism)

Gorges de la TaminaHembergLichtensteigBridges of Bruggen and the Sitter ValleyWerdenbergZiegelbrücke
Interactive map — schematic view of Switzerland.
A ray of light falls almost vertically between the tall dark walls of the Tamina Gorge, lighting up the mossy rock face and the pebbly bed of the torrent; a small wooden shelter is tucked onto a ledge at the foot of the fissure.

Limestone gorge · St. Gallen

Gorges de la Tamina

Between Pfäfers and Bad Ragaz, the Tamina carved an 8.4 km gorge over 15,000 years, spanned by natural rock bridges; at its head, a 36.6°C spring, tapped since 1350, now feeds the baths of Bad Ragaz.

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.

The Hauptgasse in Lichtensteig at the end of the day, in raking golden light: painted facades with colourful shutters and arcades on stone pillars in the foreground; in the centre, a golden onion-domed tower with a red conical roof crowns the former district building (Bezirksgebäude); the cobbled street descends toward more old houses.

Medieval small town · St Gallen

Lichtensteig

Recorded in 1228, the town gained charters of liberties from 1400. The county passed to the Abbey of St Gallen in 1468, which stationed its reeve there until 1798. Wakker Prize 2023, it joined Switzerland's Most Beautiful Villages in 2016.

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.

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.