St Gallen’s 16th-century library is one of the world’s oldest and the finest example of rococo architecture in Switzerland. Along with the rest of the monastery complex, the library forms a Unesco World Heritage Site. Filled with priceless books and manuscripts painstakingly handwritten by monks during the Middle Ages, it’s a dimly lit confection of ceiling frescoes, stucco, cherubs and parquetry. Only 30,000 of the total 150,000 volumes are in the library at any one time, arranged into special exhibitions.
If there’s a tour guide in the library during your visit, you might see the monks’ filing system, hidden in the wall panels. Kids are enthralled by the 2700-year-old mummified corpse in the far right corner.
