We did a very short walk to the ruined priory at Rüeggisberg- it only took an hour! We drove there and then took the bus back. We had been to visit the ‘kloster’ (which is a ruin) before starting this journey and it was there that Sue had the idea to make a labyrinth in the garden. The Way of St. James actually gets under one’s skin long before one thinks that one has the idea to walk - it is only later that this becomes obvious! The Priory was founded between 1072 and 1076 by Lütold of Rümligen, who granted the property and estates to Cluny Abbey making it the first Cluniac house in the German-speaking world. Construction of the Romanesque church lasted from about 1100 to about 1185, of which there still remain the north transept and parts of the crossing tower. The priory was one of the most important monastic houses of Switzerland during the Middle Ages, but in the late medieval period decline set in, and the church was shut down in 1541 during the Reformation. The monastic buildings thereafter served as a source of building stone and partly as a barn. Two rows of trees mark where the supporting pillars of the nave once were.
