City museum, Bludenz

The Stadtmuseum Bludenz sits inside the Obere Tor, a medieval gatehouse at the western end of the old town. The gate was built in the late 15th century as part of Bludenz’s town wall and still shows its three-storey structure with a hipped roof and a pointed archway. Inside the gate, a row of musket slits marks the defensive upper floor, while two large frescoes face each other across the passage. One shows Duke Friedrich V confirming the town’s charter in 1420, painted by Hubert Fritz in 1948. The other, on the inner side, depicts the Archangel Michael battling Satan, dated around 1774. The museum holds collections of prehistoric finds, art history and local customs. Prehistoric pieces include Bronze Age tools and Roman coins discovered in the surrounding area. Art history is represented by Gothic sculptures and Baroque paintings from regional churches. The folk section displays traditional costumes, farming tools and 19th-century household objects that tell how people lived in the upper Vorarlberg valleys. From the gate a covered staircase leads up to the Laurentiuskirche and Schloss Gayenhofen. The church stands on a small hill above the old town, offering views across the Ill valley to the Lechtal Alps. Schloss Gayenhofen, now the town hall, is a 16th-century building with a stepped gable and a quiet courtyard. The whole district around the gate and church keeps the feel of a small medieval town, with narrow lanes and old merchant houses.