Bregenz

19 places

The Bregenz route stitches together a stretch of the Rhine valley where three countries meet, a lakeside city of culture and theatre, and the peaks and slopes of the Allgäuer Alps. Along this line you move from the broad river plain to the wooded gorges of the Bregenzer Ach, then up through vineyards and baroque pilgrimage churches to the high pastures of the Pfänderstock. The route ends with a cable-car ride that lifts you above the Bodensee for a view of the Alps on one side and the lake on the other. Between these points you will find medieval ruins, modern art in glass boxes, and quiet wetlands where beavers share the reeds with water rails.

Art in glass and light

The Kunsthaus Bregenz stands on the lakefront like a block of pale stone wrapped in a veil of etched glass. Inside, the galleries are flooded with the same even light that filters through the façade, giving contemporary works by artists such as Donald Judd and Per Kirkeby a clarity they rarely find elsewhere. The building, designed by Peter Zumthor between 1990 and 1997, is as much an exhibit as the changing shows it houses. From the foyer you ascend through floors of terrazzo and concrete, each level offering a different shade of daylight. The topmost room is a skylit hall where the play of light on the walls becomes part of the installation. Outside, the plaza between the Kunsthaus and the lake hosts summer film nights, the screen framed by the building’s glowing skin.

A church lit by electricity before Vienna

The Kreuzkirche am Ölrain was the first church in the old Austrian empire to be both heated and lit by electricity. Built between 1862 and 1864 in red brick and sandstone, its neogothic spire still pierces the skyline of Bregenz’s southern quarter. The interior is a single nave under an open timber roof, with a Rieger organ of 1981 above the west door. On the north side the cemetery holds weathered headstones and a war memorial topped by a stone crucifix carved in 1923. The church’s south aisle looks out over the roofs of the old town and the distant Alps, a quiet prospect framed by the wooden gallery.

Where counts and counts rebuilt

Schloss Wolfurt began as a medieval fortress first recorded in 1217, yet its present form is a patchwork of later centuries. After a fire in 1939 the building was rebuilt in 1940 in a blend of gothic and baroque motifs for its then owner, the French military governor of Vorarlberg. In 2017 the municipality bought the castle for €4.1 million and opened parts of the interior to visitors. The great hall still shows the heraldic shields of the Leber family, who held the castle as a fief until the 19th century. From the terrace you look across the Rhine plain to the Rätikon massif, the view sharpened by the castle’s elevated position.

Where the Rhine valley begins

The Alpenrheintal starts where Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein join at Reichenau-Tamins, 90 kilometres upstream from Bregenz. From that confluence the valley floor widens to ten kilometres, flanked by the Alpstein and Rätikon ranges. The river’s course was fixed in the 20th century to control floods, leaving a ribbon of regulated water between orchards and vineyards. In Chur, the valley’s largest town, the cathedral square still bears the scars of medieval fires, while in Vaduz the Liechtenstein wine growers’ co-operatives press pinot noir in cellars carved into the hillside. The valley’s gentle gradient makes it an easy cycle route, the road shaded by poplars and lined with roadside shrines.

A gorge that shelters rare blooms

The Bregenzerachschlucht is a steep, wooded cleft where the Bregenzer Ach tumbles out of the Allgäuer Alps. Since 1995 the gorge has been a Natura 2000 site, home to yellow lady’s slipper, yellow-bellied toad and black woodpecker. The river constantly reshapes its bed after floods, carving new gravel banks and backwaters that create micro-habitats. A retired local cleared a stretch of the old railway line that once ran through the gorge, but no official path follows it; the terrain remains rugged and protected. The silence is broken only by the rush of water and the occasional call of a water pipit above the treetops.

A river mouth that shelters herons and beavers

The Leiblach flows into the Bodensee at the western edge of Bregenz, its last kilometres forming a mosaic of shallow waters, reed beds and wet meadows. The protected area begins just below kilometre 4.8 of the river and extends to the lake, excluding the public beach and sports fields. Here great crested grebes nest among the pondweeds, while beavers gnaw willows along the Mühlbach. The Röhrichte and Schmelzwiese sections offer boardwalks that wind through stands of great fen-sedge and yellow flag iris. In spring the air hums with the calls of reed warblers and the drumming of great spotted woodpeckers.

A ruin with a church inside

Burg Hohenbregenz clings to the 598-metre Gebhardsberg south-east of the town centre. Built by the counts of Bregenz in the 11th century, it was occupied by Swedish troops in 1647 and later became a pilgrimage site after a chapel was erected in the palace ruins. The church burned in 1791 but was rebuilt; in 1896 the painter Gebhard Fugel added frescoes to the interior. Today the ruin shelters a restaurant whose terrace commands a view of the lake and the Allgäuer Alps. The remains of the ring wall and a gothic ceiling from Rankweil are still visible inside the vaulted rooms.

A fortress turned to rubble

The Ruggburg once guarded a key pass on the Upper Tirol salt road. Its core was a keep surrounded by a curtain wall and outer bailey, separated by a deep ditch. In 1452 Swabian towns besieged the castle for five weeks, reducing much of it to rubble. Further collapses in 1529 and 1825 left only the eastern side of the keep standing, while a triangular tower from the 15th century marks the outer defences. The site is now a protected ruin, its stonework overgrown with juniper and wild thyme. The walk from Eichenberg village takes about forty minutes up through beech woods.

A monastery on a hill above the lake

Abtei Mariastern-Gwiggen sits on a wooded knoll north of Bregenz, its cream walls and red roofs visible across the valley. The community moved here in 1856 after their Swiss convents were dissolved, building a new church in neo-roman style between 1895 and 1896. The nuns support themselves through a guesthouse, handcraft workshops and courses in icon painting. The church interior is a single nave under a wooden ceiling, its walls lined with icons and a painted iconostasis. The cloister courtyard holds a fountain and a small cemetery where the sisters are buried beneath simple wooden crosses.