The three towers
A triangular plan with a tower at each corner, and a walk along the ramparts.
Roland zh — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Roland zh — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Roland zh — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Roland zh — CC BY-SA 3.0
For most day trippers **the free part is enough**: the courtyard, the walk over the hill, the deer park and the lake view all cost nothing, and they are the essence of the visit. Pay for the ticket if you genuinely like castle interiors — the route through the ramparts, the two towers and the halls is good and takes an hour to ninety minutes — or if you carry a **Swiss Travel Pass**, in which case entry is free and there is no reason to skip it. Do not come on a Monday expecting to get into the exhibition.
**Boat one way, train the other** is the best arrangement. The train from Zurich main station takes about forty minutes and runs several times an hour year-round, so it is the practical option. The boat from the Bürkliplatz quay is far slower — roughly two hours each way — but it is the beautiful part of the day, and the lake fleet includes two historic paddle steamers built in 1909 and 1914. Full boat service is seasonal (broadly April to October), and the Swiss Travel Pass covers both train and boat.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
Rapperswil Castle stands on a rocky spur pushing out into **Lake Zurich**, built by the counts of Rapperswil in the first decades of the thirteenth century. Its plan is a rough triangle with a tower at each corner and a courtyard in the middle. It was destroyed in 1350 during the conflict with Zurich, then rebuilt between 1352 and 1354 by the Austrian duke Albert II — and most of what you see today dates from that Habsburg phase. The permanent exhibition inside runs a route through the rampart walk, the powder tower, the Gügeli tower and the rooms of the main building, and takes an hour to an hour and a half. From 1870 until 2022 part of the castle housed a **Polish museum**, founded by Polish exiles to keep their country's memory alive; it moved out when the castle was renovated, and the Polish chapter is now told inside the castle's own exhibition alongside the Habsburg one. The museum itself is being re-established in the town below, at the foot of the castle climb. On the hill's northern slope is a **deer park** that has kept a herd since 1871, free to enter. The courtyard, the hill and the view over the lake are **entirely free** — the ticket covers only the exhibition, which makes Rapperswil a relatively cheap day out by Swiss standards. The town below is nicknamed the **"town of roses"** for three rose gardens that flower between June and October, and from its shore an **841-metre wooden footbridge** crosses to the village of Hurden opposite. From Zurich main station the train takes about forty minutes; the climb up to the castle is short but steep.
A triangular plan with a tower at each corner, and a walk along the ramparts.
A herd on the hill's slope since 1871, free to enter.
Three rose gardens in the town, in flower from June to October.
Schloss Rapperswil, 8640 Rapperswil-Jona