St. Gallen

The town grew around the abbey, built in the eighth century where the Irish missionary Gallus is said to have settled by the Steinach in AD 612; Saint Othmar founded the monastery proper around 720. It prospered in the ninth century as a place of pilgrimage and a centre of trade, with guest houses, stables, a hospital and one of the first monastery schools north of the Alps. The abbey is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and its library holds books from the ninth century. The city is the centre of eastern Switzerland and the gate to the Appenzellerland.