Museum Appenzell

What makes it special

Before the First World War more than half the canton's women worked, most of them as embroiderers, and the biggest buyers were the Paris fashion houses. That makes the embroidery cases a history of women's work as much as of craft.

Look next at the festival costumes, with filigree collars and silver jewellery. The herders' bell straps, dog collars and braces beside them carry finely chased brass fittings, and the wooden milk vessels are carved with ornament.

Other rooms cover painted farm furniture, popular religion and folk piety.

Finds from the Wildkirchli caves are on show. A section on early tourism covers Wildkirchli, the Ebenalp and the mountain lakes, the places early travellers chiefly visited in the Alpstein. The museum's photograph collection is a reference point for the displays.

Visiting

Easiest of all is to make it your first stop and fold it into a walk down the main street. If you do not read German, ask at the desk for a printed guide to carry round.

The permanent exhibition is self-guided, so you set the order. Start with the embroidery, which sets up the rest of the house.

From June to mid-October, a craftsperson works here on Thursday afternoons and an embroiderer on Friday afternoons. Come then and you can watch the work before seeing the historic pieces in the cases.

Guided or on your own

Public tours are in German, on the first and third Sunday and the second and fourth Wednesday of each month at 3pm; other languages are possible on request. They suit you if you follow German well; otherwise the rooms work on your own.

Tips

Bring the children: they enter free with an adult, and the Geissli-Pass leads them to stations where they paint, craft and play. Entry is also free with the Swiss Museum Pass or the Appenzeller Ferienkarte, so check what your hotel or rail pass already covers before you pay.