Bucket list for culture lovers

The cultural landscape in the Lake Constance canton is as colorful as a Thurgau flower meadow. Award-winning, small but fine museums with exciting temporary exhibitions and original tours are sure to surprise visitors. Art and history behind monastery and castle walls invite you to discover them or stay overnight. UNESCO World Heritage Sites, industrial pioneers and Napoleon show that you are just a small link in an unimaginably long chain.

Hefenhofen_Chatzerueti_Courtyard_Dining_room

Where Thurgau made history

Vacations in a monk's hermitage in a former Carthusian monastery? Spend the night where Lake Constance fishermen once lived? Sleeping the Sleeping Beauty in a moated castle? Sleep in a traditional Thurgau timber-framed house? Spend the night in a Thurgau architectural monument and discover the many stories of historic walls up close.

Vacations in a listed building

Frauenfeld: Free museums and more

The museums in Frauenfeld are free of charge: These are the Thurgau Historical Museum in Frauenfeld Castle and the Museum of Archaeology and the Museum of Nature in the same building in Frauenfeld's cozy old town. They are small but mighty, repeatedly award-winning, with exciting temporary exhibitions, interactive podcasts, scavenger hunts, audio guides, escape rooms and song tours. An experience for young and old. The Cinema Luna cultural cinema, the Baliere city gallery, events at the cantonal library and the KAFF cultural association are sure to delight culture lovers.

About Frauenfeld's cultural landscape

In Napoleon's footsteps

Napoleon the Third spent a large part of his youth in Thurgau at Arenenberg Castle. The future Emperor of France was a character who was unjustly relegated to the margins of history. He was esteemed and respected in the region, the canton of Thurgau made him its only honorary citizen and he even spoke Thurgau dialect. His legacy on the picturesque Untersee can still be explored today.

Discover Napoleon's world

Carthusians, art and herb gardens

The former Carthusian monastery of Ittingen is nestled in a gentle bend of the River Thur, surrounded by flowering meadows and vines. As soon as you step through the gate, the peace and harmony of this place envelops you. Here you can stay overnight, stroll through the wonderful grounds with rose and herb gardens and indulge in cultural and culinary delights. The restaurant serves almost exclusively produce from the estate's own farm. Audio guides, the Ittinger Museum and a scavenger hunt invite you to get to know the gardens and history of this enchanting place. The Thurgau Art Museum, which is based here, inspires visitors with temporary exhibitions showing regional, national and international art.

Discover Ittingen Charterhouse

Pile dwellers: world culture in Thurgau

111 pile-dwelling sites in six countries in the Alpine region are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps". Four of them are located in Thurgau. The pile-dwelling villages have one thing in common: they were all located on the water and are now stored under low-oxygen layers as if in a prehistoric time capsule. Excavations have revealed precise information about life at that time. The following is a two-day excursion into the world of the region's first sedentary farmers.

Pile dwelling Thurgau

Scary or beautiful?

Curiosities, insider tips, phenomena: the (city) guides of these somewhat different guided tours through the Lake Constance canton know the most incredible stories, the most astonishing facts, the funniest anecdotes and the most eerily beautiful adventures from 1000 years of Thurgau.

Special guided tours

Arbon: of industrial pioneers and apples

The third-largest town in the canton of Thurgau on the southern shore of Lake Constance looks back on a rich history. Traces of pile dwellers and Roman town walls have been preserved. There is also an intact medieval old town to discover. Or the legacy of industrial pioneer Adolf Saurer with his motor vehicles. And in typical Thurgau style: the award-winning Swiss cidery and distillery museum "MoMö", which tells the story from apple blossom to Shorley in a bottle.

Discover Arbon

Wine at Lake Constance

In 2025, the Lake Constance region is focusing on its traditional wine culture. Five museums in Thurgau are putting on joint exhibitions highlighting the history of viticulture and its importance for the region: the Napoleon Museum Arenenberg, the Museum of Archaeology, the Nature Museum, the History Museum and the Art and Ittinger Museum. The exhibitions tell of the diversity of varieties, smuggling stories and the Thurgau grape variety, the 150th anniversary of which will be celebrated in 2025. A common theme, presented in five individual exhibitions - enjoyable contemplation expressly encouraged. The Thurgau museums' offerings are rounded off by activities around the lake that make the wine year on Lake Constance a special experience.

Wine at Lake Constance

The contemplative world of Fischingen Monastery

Five Benedictine monks still live and work in Fischingen today, giving the only active monastery in Thurgau a very special and contemplative atmosphere. This place of power helps visitors to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Whether at a concert in the baroque library, an overnight stay in the former monk's cell, a meditation session or a guided tour through the eventful history - Fischingen Monastery inspires and promises a time-out in green, tranquil surroundings.

Discover Fischingen Monastery

Kreuzlingen: Town on Lake Constance, gateway to Germany

Kreuzlingen is not only located on the Seeenge, where Lake Constance merges into the Seerhein, but also directly on the border with Germany. Want to take a quick stroll across? Here you go. Due to this location and its proximity to the formerly ecclesiastically important city of Constance, the Thurgau Pilgrims' Trail starts in Kreuzlingen. The town's border location and history also provide the content for the local Foxtrail "Conexus". The Seemuseum, Museum Rosenegg or the free guided tours of Kreuzlingen entdecken provide information about the town's rich history. Art lovers can discover modern to contemporary art in public spaces on twelve themed tours of the Kreuzlingen art trails. Fun is guaranteed in the open air at the Seeburgtheater or at the legendary Kreuzlingen Lake Night Festival, while the Lake Constance Planetarium and Observatory offers a view of the stars.

Culture in Kreuzlingen

Culture on Lake Constance

Thurgau is rich in cultural achievements and offers much more. The stories behind them can be discovered and experienced in the various museums, monasteries, castles and other sights.

Discover more cultural experiences