St Gallen grew up around a hermit's cell. In the early seventh century an Irish monk called Gallus settled in a forest valley here, and a monastery grew up that became one of the great centres of learning in medieval Europe. Today the abbey district is a UNESCO site, with a baroque cathedral, an abbey library, and a plan of the cloister, a famous ninth-century drawing that shows what an ideal monastery should look like.
The library is the highlight. It is one of the oldest and finest in the world, with a hall of carved wood, painted ceilings and gleaming parquet floors, and it holds about a hundred and seventy thousand volumes, many of them medieval manuscripts. Visitors put on felt slippers to protect the floor, which gives the place a hushed quality. The town later became a centre of textile production, famous for embroidery and lace, and the grand merchants' houses of the old town, with their oriel windows, show how rich it became.
The town sits at about six hundred and seventy metres above sea level, in a hilly region between Lake Constance and the Appenzell hills, and the roads leaving it are the draw for riders. To the south, the Appenzell loop runs through green rolling country of farms, wooden houses and cow bells, with the Santis mountain towering above. Teufen is a village on the way, and the pass road up to Schwagalp climbs to the foot of the Santis. Traffic is moderate, and the surface is excellent, but the corners tighten quickly and the weather can change from sun to rain in minutes.
St Gallen has about seventy thousand people and every kind of service, with fuel, workshops and plenty of cafes. Try the St Galler Bratwurst, a veal sausage that is traditionally eaten without mustard, with a piece of bread called a Bürli. In the Appenzell hills, cheese is the local pride, with a spicy hard cheese washed in a secret herbal brine. Autumn is lovely, when the cows come down from the Alps in decorated processions. Spring brings fresh grass and blossom.