Pilgrimage Sites in Switzerland

Disentis

One of Switzerland's oldest monasteries, founded c. 700 on the Lukmanier Pass, where Saints Placidus and Sigisbert established Benedictine life.

Einsiedeln

Switzerland's largest pilgrimage site, where the Black Madonna stands in a chapel inside the Benedictine abbey church.

Engelberg

Alpine Benedictine abbey founded in 1120 beneath Mount Titlis, housing Switzerland's largest church organ and welcoming pilgrims for nine centuries.

Flüeli-Ranft

The birthplace and hermitage of Nicholas of Flüe, Switzerland's patron saint, in the gorge of the Ranft above Sachseln.

Hergiswald

Central Switzerland

A Baroque pilgrimage church on Mount Pilatus housing the Black Madonna of Loreto beneath 324 painted Marian ceiling panels — the largest such cycle in existence.

Luthern Bad

Luzerner Hinterland

The "Lourdes of Switzerland" — a healing spring discovered in 1581 after an apparition of the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln, with weekly blessings of the sick.

Mariastein, Solothurn

Switzerland's second-largest pilgrimage center, where pilgrims descend into a cave shrine to venerate the miraculous Madonna.

Muri

Habsburg foundation where the hearts of Blessed Karl of Austria and Empress Zita rest, a pilgrimage site for devotees of the last emperor.

Müstair

UNESCO World Heritage convent attributed to Charlemagne, preserving the world's largest cycle of early medieval frescoes.

Orselina

Madonna del Sasso, on a rock 370 m above Lake Maggiore, built after a Franciscan friar's vision of the Virgin in 1480.

Sachseln

Sachseln's Baroque pilgrimage church holds the tomb of St. Nicholas of Flüe, patron saint of Switzerland, canonized 1947 by Pius XII.

Saint-Maurice

Oldest continuously existing Christian monastery in the Western world, founded in 515 to honor the Theban Legion martyrs.

St. Gallen

Historic Camino waypoint built on St. Gallus's 7th-century hermitage, famed for the Abbey Library, the Seelenapotheke or pharmacy of the soul.