Wettingen Abbey

After being miraculously saved from shipwreck during the crusades, he gave his possessions in Wettingen to Salem Abbey, a Cistercian house in the north of the region around the Bodensee.

On 14 October 1227, the monks began building the monastery, called Stella Maris[3] (Latin: "Star of the sea").

From the beginning the abbey was able to add to its possessions: in Uri, in Zürich, in Riehen and above all in the valley of the Limmat in the area round Wettingen.

In the turmoil after the French Revolution the abbey afforded shelter to thousands of political and religious refugees from France.

In 1803, the abbey came into the possession of the newly established Canton of Aargau, which initially gave assurances of its continuance, provided it maintained a school.

After some years of wandering, the monks settled, on 8 June 1854, in the secularised monastery at Mehrerau in Bregenz in Austria, since known as Wettingen-Mehrerau Abbey.

[4] The abbey is open to the public and offers tours where visitors can see the monks’ church, the Konversenkirch with Romanesque-Gothic stained glass windows and the cloister garden with trees over 200 years old.