Explore Bregenz

Bregenzer Festspiele

In July and August, opera plays on the world's largest floating stage, right in the middle of Lake Constance. Plus concerts and theatre in the Festspielhaus.

Since 1946 Bregenz has moved its summers onto the water. The stage stands in the lake, the audience sits on the shore, and during the performance dusk settles slowly over Lake Constance behind the set.

Each production on the lake stays for two summers, joined by opera, drama and concerts inside the Festspielhaus. Tickets for the big evenings sell out early, which makes a look at the rest of the programme all the more worthwhile. And there is almost always time for an ice cream by the lake before the doors open.

Kunsthaus Bregenz

Contemporary art in Peter Zumthor's glass body from 1997, a building that looks different in every light.

Peter Zumthor's glass body has stood on Karl-Tizian-Platz since 1997, a block of matt light. Its skin of etched glass shingles takes on the weather from the lake and changes colour with it: grey in rain, silver in sunshine.

Inside are four floors that manage almost entirely without artificial light: daylight falls in through the ceilings, not through windows. On these floors the museum shows contemporary art in a few large exhibitions each year, many of them developed especially for its rooms.

vorarlberg museum

From Roman Brigantium into the present day, behind a façade of concrete blossoms. The oldest museum in the Lake Constance region.

The state museum on Kornmarktplatz was completed in 2013 by Cukrowicz Nachbaur Architekten. Thousands of concrete blossoms run across the white façade, cast from the bases of ordinary PET bottles.

Inside, the route runs from the archaeology of the Lake Constance region through craft and everyday life to contemporary art. And from the top floor, harbour, lake and the Eispavillon lie in a single view.

Pfänderbahn

The cable car takes you up the 1,064-metre local mountain. At the top: a view across the whole of Lake Constance and some 240 Alpine peaks.

Since 20 March 1927 the cable car has run from 419 to 1,022 metres, covering a good 600 metres of ascent in six minutes. From the top station it is a few steps on foot to the summit. The cabins date from the 1995 rebuild and carry 80 people; on clear days the view from up there takes in up to 240 Alpine peaks.

Hiking trails start in every direction from the top station, the alpine wildlife park is free to enter, and there are inns with terraces as well. Anyone waiting below will find a small museum on the history of the cable car in the valley station.

Harbour & boats

The scheduled boats set off across the lake from the harbour. To the north the Blumenmolo pier reaches out, with the lighthouse at its tip.

In the summer season the scheduled boats leave the harbour on the promenade and cross Lake Constance: to Lindau, on to Friedrichshafen, Konstanz and Mainau Island. There are round trips as well, including in the evening.

The timetable is posted at the landing stage, and tickets are available there or online. And between two boats there is almost always time for an ice cream. It is only a few steps from the jetty to our counter.

Upper town & Martinsturm

The medieval upper town above the lake, overlooked by the Martinsturm with its striking onion dome.

Around 1250 there was nothing here but a granary against the town wall. Between 1599 and 1601 master builder Benedetto Prato added a mezzanine, the watchman's flat and the arcaded storey, along with the curved onion dome. The granary became the town's lookout, where for centuries a watchman warned of fire.

Today the tower houses an exhibition on the history of the town, and the adjoining Martin’s Chapel holds Gothic frescoes from the 14th century. From the top a panorama opens up over town, lake and mountain. The climb is not step-free.

Vorarlberger Landestheater

Drama in the former granary of 1838, a few steps from the harbour. The programme changes, and individual performances take place at other venues in Bregenz.

Performances are held in the Theater am Kornmarkt, erected in 1838/40 as a granary and converted into a theatre in the 1950s. The Landestheater itself has existed since 1945.

The programme covers drama, music theatre and pieces for children and young people. Because the building is currently being refurbished, performances are sometimes held at other venues in Bregenz and around the province. The current programme says where.

Mariahilf church

An oval central building with an octagonal tower, built between 1925 and 1931 to plans by Clemens Holzmeister and a listed monument today.

It was planned as a memorial church for the province of Vorarlberg. It was built between 1925 and 1931 to plans by Clemens Holzmeister: an oval central building with an octagonal tower, forecourt and adjoining parish houses.

The tower holds four steel bells from the Böhler foundry, and the stained glass windows were made partly to designs by Anton Faistauer. In 1980 Hans Purin reordered the interior. The building is a listed monument.

Europe's narrowest house

Wedged between two neighbouring houses is a façade just 57 centimetres wide: Europe's narrowest house.

The house at Kirchstraße 29 has no side walls of its own. At some point it was slipped into the gap between numbers 27 and 31; the front door is wider than the façade and reaches onto the neighbouring building. Towards the back the floor plan widens like a wedge, ending at around 60 square metres.

In 1796 the house belonged to a candle maker, and from 1886 to a family of brush makers who sold brushes and prams here until 1999. After that the façade was bricked up for a while. Today a gallery lies behind the 57-centimetre front.