A nice way to explore history and learn about traditional handcrafts! The campus continues to grow... read more
A nice way to explore history and learn about traditional handcrafts! The campus continues to grow... read more
This is the place to go if you want to understand life in the year 800. Many of the enthusiasts... read more
If you are interested in ancient European history, a visit to Campus Galli is definitely worthwhile. While it is better to go when it is not raining, there are so many aspects of the visit that easily compensate for muddy shoes! For too many reasons to detail here, just for its own sake, it is a fascinating place to stay a while and enjoy. However, if you are visiting Germany and Switzerland and you have the opportunity to visit the beautiful and historic Swiss town of St.Gallen - not so far across Lake Constance by ferry - Campus Galli takes on a deeper significance. In the museum situated close by the magificent St.Gall cathedral you can learn about and look at one of the best preserved plans drawn in the middle-ages around 830 AD. This plan serves as the basis for Campus Galli making it interesting to experience the link between the activities of human kind over the centuries.
This is the place to go if you want to understand life in the year 800. Many of the enthusiasts taking part in the century long effort are scientists, researchers and master craftsmen practicing techniques long forgot to our fast paced world. The staff and volunteers move to the rhythm of the IXth Century. They have all the time in the world. And if you have nothing going between April and November for the next 40 or so years, there's a place for you too.
This is a very nice experience, similar to the Guedelon one in France; rebuild a village from middle age with middle age technics only. Children can learn a lot about because they can discuss, question, touch and see how it was. That’s great!!!
Take time as well to have lunch there; the food is extraordinary delicious.
To see this fascinating Campus, we needed to walk around 3,5 km along the forest. Prepare your walking shoes. After raining there are usually mud in some spots, bring an extra shoes or a plastic bag for your dirty shoes if you will go home and drive a car.
We were very happy to see our kids were also excited to walk around. I told them that in my home country, Indonesia, there are same things they can see, for instance how Indonesian people are still living in a primitive house without ceramics nor woods floor but soil.
Enjoy some attractive activities with smith, carpenter, handicraft maker, farmer... And some souvenirs you may buy as a remembrance.
For the entrance; We paid a family ticket of 21,50€ (2 adults and 2 children).
Food? Enjoy Dinnele, looks like Pflammkuchen for 5€. Sausages and soup are offered. Beer, Apfelschörle and Other Softdrinks are on the menu.
Each bowl and glass has 5€ return. Why? They're nice and a handmade!
Ps; Toilets are available everywhere.
I thought this place was great. The aim is to build a monastery to fit a 9th-century plan. That includes all the ancillary buildings and activities. So you can see smiths, beekeepers, potters, and carpenters busy at work using early medieval techniques. Guided tour recommended,she added lots of info (not sure if available in English tho'). A great way to spend a few hours. NB - not easy to get to with public transport (but not impossible...)
Imagine you take the oldest surviving blueprint for the layout and construction of a monastery around AD 800 (the famous "St.Gall-monastery-plan") and decide to rebuild it from scratch, using only tools and methods available back then in order to find out how it was done and what it took to do it. This is Campus Galli in a nutshell. A project that will take some twenty years or more to complete. Meanwhile you can wander the grounds and take in the work in progress, including baking your own medieval pizza with early medieval grains and drinking your met. Highly interesting and inspiring - even though relatively little is completed at this time (2016), but enough to see how things develop - and all the trades are there and at work.