Berggasthaus Äscher

Interesting facts

About two dozen hermits lived in the Wildkirchli caves from 1658 until the mid-nineteenth century; the last, Anton Fässler, died in a fall.

Joseph Viktor von Scheffel's 1855 novel Ekkehard sends its hero to live as a hermit at Wildkirchli, which helped make the caves famous.

The prehistoric finds were made by the archaeologist Emil Bächler, whose excavations in the caves began in 1904.

Mass is still celebrated in the altar cave that the hermits fitted out as a chapel beside the inn.

The karst cave system the path passes through measures about 150 metres in total length.

The first hosts were Alpine dairymen who began serving food and drink in 1846, profiting from the pilgrims visiting the hermitage.

The inn draws around 200,000 visitors a year.

Between autumn 2019 and spring 2020 the western part of the inn was rebuilt, while its outward appearance was kept exactly as before.

Why it is worth it

Halfway up a sheer limestone wall in the Alpstein massif, a wooden mountain inn is tucked beneath a great overhang of rock, its shingled facade pressed against the cliff as if it had grown there. The Berggasthaus Äscher, also known as Aescher-Wildkirchli, sits on a ledge below the 1,640-metre summit of Ebenalp in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden, looking out over a steep green drop towards the valley and the lake of Seealpsee far below.

The setting has a long human history. The inn stands beside the Wildkirchli, a group of three linked caves where excavations in the early twentieth century uncovered stone tools left by Neanderthal hunters around 40,000 years ago, along with cave-bear bones even older; the identification of these finds was the first evidence of Neanderthals in the Appenzell Alps. In 1658 the Appenzell priest Paulus Ulmann founded a chapel in one of the caves and a hermitage in another, and a succession of hermits lived here, offering food and shelter to pilgrims. After the last hermit died in 1851 the tradition of hospitality continued as an inn. Guests have been served at the site since 1846, and the present building dates from 1860, raised on the spot of a former rock shelter used by the hermit monks.

The inn is protected as a cultural property of national significance and belongs to the Wildkirchli Foundation. Its image has long been part of local life: since 1960 a drawing of the inn above the Seealpsee has appeared on the label of the regional herbal liqueur. In 2015 a photograph of the Äscher appeared on the cover of National Geographic's book Destinations of a Lifetime, and the inn on its ledge became one of the most widely shared images of Switzerland. A short path from Ebenalp leads past the cave chapel and a small museum of the prehistoric finds before reaching the inn.

Getting there

The inn lies in the Alpstein massif about 16 km from St. Gallen in a straight line. The nearest airport is St. Gallen–Altenrhein (ACH), about 25 km away. Regional trains run to Wasserauen, the terminus of the line from Gossau, where an aerial cableway climbs to Ebenalp; from the upper station a footpath through the Wildkirchli caves descends to the inn in about 15 minutes.

Berggasthaus Äscher

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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