Self-Guided Walking Tour in St. Gallen

15 Stops 4.9 km ~3.2 hours
Try This Tour
Walking tour route map of St. Gallen
Try This Tour

Why Walk St. Gallen? A Self-Guided Tour

St. Gallen is built for walking, and not by accident. The old town is a tight, almost entirely car-free knot of cobbled lanes, and the two things that put the city on the map, the Abbey Library and the painted bay windows, sit within a few hundred metres of each other. You do not need a car, a tram pass, or a plan B. You need decent shoes and about half a day.

This route is a loop, so you end where you start, on Marktplatz. It does the obvious in the right order: the humanist who reformed the city, the Erkerstadt bay windows that locals are quietly obsessed with, the textile money that paid for all of it, the UNESCO library and cathedral, then a funicular up to the Three Ponds for the view back down over everything you just saw. The second half drops back into town past the last medieval gate and the cultural quarter of theatre, concert hall and art museum.

Why follow a fixed line instead of wandering? Because St. Gallen rewards sequence. The bay windows make more sense after you know the lace trade that built them. The library hits harder when you have already stood under the cathedral towers. Wandering, you would miss half the oriels because they hide on side streets, and you would probably skip the funicular entirely, which would be the real mistake.

The Route: 15 Stops

Swipe through images or scroll names below

Scroll to explore →
1. Marktplatz Farmers Market
2. Vadian Monument
3. Old Town Oriel Windows
4. Textile Museum St. Gallen
5. Synagogue St. Gallen
6. Abbey Library of St. Gallen
7. Mühleggbahn Funicular
8. Three Ponds
9. Karlstor
10. Cathedral of St. Gallen
11. St. Laurenzen Church
12. Tonhalle St. Gallen
13. Stadttheater St. Gallen
14. Art Museum St. Gallen
15. Marktplatz Farmers Market

Route Map

Tap to load interactive map
AI Tourguide
Walk this exact route with a private AI guide.
Full GPS navigation, interactive stories, and a guide that answers all your questions. A private guide experience for just €5/hour.
Try This Tour

Your St. Gallen Walking Tour, Stop by Stop

  1. 1

    Marktplatz Farmers Market

    Marktplatz Farmers Market in St. Gallen, stop 1 on the self-guided walking tour

    The loop closes where it opened. You come back into Marktplatz from the cultural-quarter side now, seeing the square from the opposite angle to your start, and the geography of the whole morning clicks into place: abbey behind you, bay windows to one side, the slope up to the ponds beyond. If it is a market day and still before closing, this is the moment to actually buy something, a wedge of Appenzeller, fruit for the train, because you now know what is good. Entry is free and the square is the easiest place in town to find a seat, a tram or a quick bite. Concrete tip: the tram and bus hub here connects straight to the main station a few minutes away, so end the walk with a drink on the square rather than rushing off, then catch transport from the same spot. You have walked the entire city in a single tidy circle.

    Hours
    Wednesday 7 am–6 pm; Saturday 7 am–4 pm (weekly farmers market)
    Price
    Free entry; vendors sell produce, cheese, bread, flowers

    You're back at the start

  2. 2

    Vadian Monument

    A few steps off the square and there he is, cast in bronze on a tall plinth: Joachim Vadian, the Renaissance humanist, physician and mayor who steered St. Gallen through the Reformation in the 1520s. The monument is open all the time and free, which is the right way to see it, in passing rather than as a destination. Do not expect a museum experience. It is a statue, and a good one, but its real value is context: Vadian is the reason this is a Protestant city wrapped around a Catholic abbey, a tension you will feel at every later stop. Locals treat the base as a meeting point and bench. Concrete tip: read the plinth, then look up and around, because from here you can already see the lanes feeding into the bay-window quarter. He is essentially pointing you at the next stop. Two minutes here is plenty.

    Hours
    Always open
    Price
    Free

    3-minute walk

  3. 3

    Old Town Oriel Windows

    Old Town Oriel Windows in St. Gallen, stop 3 on the self-guided walking tour

    This is where St. Gallen earns its nickname, Erkerstadt, the city of bay windows. Wander Spisergasse, Schmiedgasse and Kugelgasse and look up: the facades are studded with ornate carved and painted oriels, projecting wooden bay windows that the textile merchants commissioned to flaunt their wealth without violating sumptuary laws. There are well over a hundred across the old town. The route is outdoors, open 24/7, and free, which makes it the best-value stop on the whole loop. The trick is that the best ones are easy to miss because they are above eye level and tucked onto side streets. Slow right down. Concrete tip: find the Pelikan oriel on Schmiedgasse and the heavily carved examples on Spisergasse, and walk this stretch with your head tilted up, ideally late morning when the sun lifts off the painted detail. Give it twenty minutes minimum. Rushing this is the classic mistake.

    Hours
    Open 24/7 (outdoor self-guided walking route through historic old town)
    Price
    Free

    4-minute walk

  4. 4

    Textile Museum St. Gallen

    Textile Museum St. Gallen, stop 4 on the self-guided walking tour

    Now the why behind those bay windows. The Textilmuseum tells the story of the lace and embroidery industry that, at its peak around 1900, made St. Gallen embroidery a global luxury, dressing royalty and shipping worldwide. It is open 10:00 to 17:00 and costs CHF 12 for adults, CHF 5 for students, under-26s and children under 18, with CHF 9 per head for groups of ten or more. Inside you get historic lace of genuinely startling delicacy plus rotating contemporary fashion shows, and it is compact enough to do properly in 45 to 60 minutes. Worth the ticket if you have any interest in design, craft or how a small Swiss town got rich. If textiles leave you cold, the bay windows you just saw are the free version of the same story and you can walk on. Concrete tip: the ground-floor shop sells real St. Gallen lace, the only place on the route to buy the actual product, not a souvenir of it.

    Hours
    10:00-17:00
    Price
    CHF 12 adults, CHF 5 students/youth (‹26)/children (‹18); CHF 9 groups (10+)

    2-minute walk

  5. 5

    Synagogue St. Gallen

    Synagogue St. Gallen, stop 5 on the self-guided walking tour

    A short walk into the Bahnhof quarter brings you to the synagogue on Frongartenstrasse 18, built in 1880 and 1881 in a Moorish revival style that stands out sharply against the surrounding stone. It is open daily 9 am to 5 pm and entry is free. This is a quieter, less-trafficked stop than the abbey crowd will see, and that is part of the point: it marks the textile-era Jewish community that arrived with the embroidery boom. The exterior with its rose window and twin towers is the main draw; interior access can depend on services and community use, so do not assume you will get in. Concrete tip: this is a genuine detour off the main old-town spine, so decide here whether you want it. If you are short on time, you can skip it without breaking the loop, but it is one of the few buildings in town that looks like nothing else around it.

    Hours
    Daily 9 AM - 5 PM
    Price
    Free

    5-minute walk

  6. 6

    Abbey Library of St. Gallen

    Abbey Library of St. Gallen, stop 6 on the self-guided walking tour

    This is the one most people come for, and it lives up to it. The Stiftsbibliothek grew from the cell that the Irish monk Gallus founded around 612 AD, and the Baroque reading room is one of the most beautiful library interiors anywhere, holding roughly 170,000 books, 2,100 medieval manuscripts and 1,650 incunabula. It joined the UNESCO World Heritage list with the abbey district in 1983, and the documents were named to the Memory of the World register in 2017. Hours are Monday to Saturday 10:00 to 17:00 and Sunday 10:00 to 16:00, but check stibi.ch before you go, because it closes for about three weeks in November and runs special hours. Entry is free. Here is the catch: you must put felt overshoes on over your own shoes to protect the inlaid wooden floor, and photography inside is restricted. Yes, it is worth it. Concrete tip: go first thing at opening to have the hall briefly to yourself before the tour groups land.

    Hours
    Mo-Sa 10:00-17:00, Su 10:00-16:00; Nov: "Im November 3 Wochen geschlossen" || "Spezielle Öffnungszeiten siehe auf der Homepage"
    Price
    Free
    Website
    stibi.ch ↗

    3-minute walk

  7. 7

    Mühleggbahn Funicular

    Mühleggbahn Funicular in St. Gallen, stop 7 on the self-guided walking tour

    Behind the abbey district the ground drops into the Steinach gorge, and the Mühleggbahn is how you cheat the climb. This little funicular runs daily, roughly 5:40 am to 12:50 am, fully automatic and on demand, so you press a button and wait rather than reading a timetable. Crucially it is part of the St. Gallen transit network, so a single-zone ticket of about CHF 2.50 covers it, or it is free on an Ostwind day pass if you already hold one. Do not skip this thinking you will just walk up. The point is the ride and what it delivers you to. Concrete tip: buy the single ticket at the lower station machine, or have your day pass ready, because there is no staffed counter. The car is small and gets busy on warm afternoons when half the city heads up to swim, so an earlier ride is calmer.

    Hours
    Daily 5:40 am–12:50 am (fully automatic on-demand)
    Price
    Integrated with St. Gallen public transit; single zone journey ~CHF 2.50 or use Ostwind day ticket

    10-minute walk

  8. 8

    Three Ponds

    Three Ponds in St. Gallen, stop 8 on the self-guided walking tour

    Step out of the funicular and the city falls away below you. Drei Weieren is a cluster of artificial ponds on the Freudenberg slope in the St. Georgen quarter, dug centuries ago for the textile bleaching trade and now the city's favourite swimming and sunbathing spot in summer, occasionally an ice rink in winter. It is open 24/7 and free. The real reward is the panorama: from up here you look straight back down over the cathedral towers and the whole old town you just walked, which is exactly why this stop sits where it does in the loop. Bring it all together visually before you descend. Concrete tip: walk the path between the ponds to the viewpoint above the Frauenweiher for the cleanest shot over the city, and if it is warm and you packed a towel, the water is genuinely swimmable. This is the spot to sit longest. Give it half an hour and let the legs rest.

    Hours
    Open 24/7
    Price
    Free

    12-minute walk

  9. 9

    Karlstor

    Karlstor in St. Gallen, stop 9 on the self-guided walking tour

    Coming back down toward the abbey you pass under the Karlstor, also called the Abtstor, and it is easy to walk straight through without registering what it is. This is the only surviving city gate from St. Gallen's medieval wall, built in 1569 and 1570. There are no hours and no ticket, it is simply a stone arch you walk beneath, the last fragment of the defences that once ringed the abbey precinct. The contrast is the interesting part: a fortified Catholic abbey town that had to wall itself off from the Protestant city around it. Concrete tip: stop on the far side and look back through the arch toward the cathedral, because the gate frames the towers and it is one of the most photogenic free shots in town, far less crowded than the cathedral forecourt. Thirty seconds of attention turns a passageway into a stop.

    Hours
    UNKNOWN_NEEDS_RESCUE
    Price
    UNKNOWN_NEEDS_RESCUE

    2-minute walk

  10. 10

    Cathedral of St. Gallen

    Cathedral of St. Gallen, stop 10 on the self-guided walking tour

    The towers have been pulling your eye all morning, and now you are under them. The Stiftskirche, the Baroque cathedral of the former Benedictine abbey, was rebuilt between 1755 and 1766 and became the cathedral of the new Bishopric of St. Gallen in 1847. With the abbey library it carries the 1983 UNESCO World Heritage listing. It is open daily 7 am to 7 pm, times shifting around services, and entry is free, with donations appreciated. The interior is a riot of green-and-white stucco, ceiling frescoes and gilt, and unlike the library there are no overshoes and no photo ban, so this is where you let the Baroque excess wash over you. Concrete tip: stand under the dome at the crossing and look up, then walk to the eastern rotunda for the best view of the choir. Twenty minutes is enough unless a service or organ rehearsal is on, in which case linger, because the acoustics are extraordinary.

    Hours
    Daily 7 am–7 pm (times vary during services)
    Price
    Free; donations appreciated

    2-minute walk

  11. 11

    St. Laurenzen Church

    St. Laurenzen Church in St. Gallen, stop 11 on the self-guided walking tour

    Walk one block north and the mood changes completely. St. Laurenzen is the Reformed parish church, the Protestant counterweight to the Catholic cathedral you just left, and for centuries it was the political and religious heart of the independent city republic. The first church here dates to the mid-12th century. It is open daily 8 am to 6 pm, free, with the interior plain and bright where the cathedral is gilded, exactly the visual argument of the Reformation in two buildings two minutes apart. The tower can be climbed seasonally, Monday to Saturday roughly 9:30 to 11:30 am and 2 to 4 pm. Concrete tip: if the tower is open and your legs have recovered from the Three Ponds, the climb gives you a rooftop view across the old town and straight at the cathedral towers, a different angle from the Drei Weieren panorama. If it is closed, the contrast with the cathedral interior is the takeaway and ten minutes covers it.

    Hours
    Daily 8 am–6 pm (times vary during services); tower access Mon–Sat 9:30–11:30 am, 2–4 pm (seasonal)
    Price
    Free

    5-minute walk

  12. 12

    Tonhalle St. Gallen

    Tonhalle St. Gallen, stop 12 on the self-guided walking tour

    Heading out of the medieval core toward the cultural quarter, the first of three grand buildings is the Tonhalle, the concert hall that opened in 1909 and remains home to the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen. It is a protected cultural monument and an elegant piece of early 20th-century architecture, a deliberate civic statement that the textile-rich city could afford high culture. There is no general daytime ticketed visit; access is for concerts, so check theatersg.ch for the programme if you want to come back in the evening. For the walk, this is an exterior stop. Concrete tip: appreciate the facade from across the street where you can take the whole symmetry in, and pair it mentally with the theatre right beside it, because the two were conceived as the city's cultural anchor together. A couple of minutes, then move to its neighbour.

    Hours
    UNKNOWN_NEEDS_RESCUE
    Price
    UNKNOWN_NEEDS_RESCUE

    1-minute walk

  13. 13

    Stadttheater St. Gallen

    Stadttheater St. Gallen, stop 13 on the self-guided walking tour

    Right next door, and a total stylistic about-face, stands the Theater St. Gallen, the former Stadttheater. This is the oldest continuously operating professional theatre in Switzerland, running opera, operetta, musical, drama, dance and children's theatre, and its sharp modernist concrete shell is a jolt after a morning of Baroque and bay windows. There is no daytime walk-in visit; the building lives at night, so check theatersg.ch for the programme and ticket prices if an evening show tempts you. On the walk it is a striking exterior and a good lesson in how St. Gallen kept building boldly across centuries. Concrete tip: stand where you can see the theatre and the 1909 Tonhalle in the same frame, sixty years of architecture side by side, which is the most interesting photo in this quarter and something you cannot get anywhere else on the loop.

    Hours
    UNKNOWN_NEEDS_RESCUE
    Price
    UNKNOWN_NEEDS_RESCUE

    2-minute walk

  14. 14

    Art Museum St. Gallen

    Art Museum St. Gallen, stop 14 on the self-guided walking tour

    The cultural trio finishes with the Kunstmuseum, one of the leading art museums of eastern Switzerland. The collection runs from late-medieval work to the present, with real strengths in 17th-century Dutch painting, 19th-century Swiss, German and French art, Appenzell folk painting, and international modern art, alongside a steady run of changing exhibitions. It is open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 17:00 and until 20:00 on Thursdays, closed Mondays. Admission has historically run around CHF 15, CHF 10 reduced, free for children, students and Kulturlegi holders, but confirm the current rate at kunstmuseumsg.ch before you commit. Budget at least an hour if you go in. This is the natural decision point of the loop: dive in for a proper museum visit, or save it and close the walk. Concrete tip: the Thursday late evening is the move if you want the galleries quiet, and the museum cafe is a calmer place for a break than anywhere back in the crowded old town.

    Hours
    Tue-Sun: 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM | Thu: 10:00 AM - 8:00 PM
    Price
    Contact for current 2025 admission (historically ~CHF 15; CHF 10 reduced); free for children/students/Kulturlegi holders

    6-minute walk

  15. 15

    Marktplatz Farmers Market

    The loop closes where it opened. You come back into Marktplatz from the cultural-quarter side now, seeing the square from the opposite angle to your start, and the geography of the whole morning clicks into place: abbey behind you, bay windows to one side, the slope up to the ponds beyond. If it is a market day and still before closing, this is the moment to actually buy something, a wedge of Appenzeller, fruit for the train, because you now know what is good. Entry is free and the square is the easiest place in town to find a seat, a tram or a quick bite. Concrete tip: the tram and bus hub here connects straight to the main station a few minutes away, so end the walk with a drink on the square rather than rushing off, then catch transport from the same spot. You have walked the entire city in a single tidy circle.

    Hours
    Wednesday 7 am–6 pm; Saturday 7 am–4 pm (weekly farmers market)
    Price
    Free entry; vendors sell produce, cheese, bread, flowers
AI Tourguide
Walk this exact route with a private AI guide.
Full GPS navigation, interactive stories, and a guide that answers all your questions. A private guide experience for just €5/hour.
Try This Tour

Self-Guided Tour vs. Group Tour in St. Gallen

Self-guided is clearly the right call here, and the maths is simple. Everything outdoors on this route is free: the bay windows, the Vadian monument, the Karlstor gate, the Three Ponds, the cathedral and St. Laurenzen, even the world-famous Abbey Library charges nothing for entry. Your only unavoidable cost is the Mühleggbahn funicular at about CHF 2.50. Add the Textile Museum at CHF 12 and the Art Museum at roughly CHF 15 only if you actually want to go inside, and a full day of St. Gallen's headline sights costs you under CHF 30, most of it optional.

Compare that to a guided walking tour. St. Gallen Tourism runs public guided old-town and abbey-district walks, typically in the CHF 20 to 30 per person range for a fixed 90-minute slot, and a private guide runs well into three figures. Those are worth it if you want the deep history narrated and you do not mind a set time and pace. But the route itself is short, signposted and impossible to get badly lost in, so for most visitors the guided premium buys narration you can get other ways.

The honest verdict: do it yourself. The one thing a self-guided walk lacks is the story, the why behind the lace fortunes and the Catholic-Protestant split that explains every building. That gap is exactly what the AI Tourguide below fills, at a fraction of a human guide's price and with no fixed start time.

Group Tour AI Self-Guided
Price €25–€50 per person €5/hour or €20 all-inclusive
Flexibility Fixed schedule Start anytime, skip stops
Languages 1–2 languages 11 languages
Pace Group pace Your own pace

How Long Does This St. Gallen Tour Take?

Our route covers 4.9 km with 15 stops and takes approximately 3.2 hours at a relaxed pace.

The route is 4.9 km. Pure walking time is roughly an hour, but nobody does it in an hour and you should not try. Plan on three to three and a half hours for the full loop done properly, which includes the funicular ride, time at the viewpoints and a couple of interior visits. The stops that genuinely need time are the Abbey Library (30 to 45 minutes with the overshoes and the reading room), the Three Ponds (a good half hour, more if you swim), and whichever of the Textile or Art Museum you choose (an hour each). If you go into both museums and linger at the ponds, this becomes a comfortable half-day.

Build your break around the Three Ponds. After the climb out of the funicular, the benches above the Frauenweiher are the best free seat in the city, with the whole old town laid out below. If you want a proper sit-down later, the Art Museum cafe near the end of the loop is calmer than anything in the packed old-town lanes. For a mid-morning coffee, take it on Marktplatz at the start, before the narrow streets where seating gets tight.

Tips for Walking in St. Gallen

  • Timing and transport: trains from Zürich reach St. Gallen main station in about 65 minutes, and the station is a 5-minute walk from Marktplatz. Start the loop by 9:30 am so you reach the Abbey Library near its 10:00 opening before tour groups arrive.
  • Terrain and shoes: the old town is cobblestone and largely car-free, easy underfoot, but the funicular drops you on the Freudenberg slope where the paths around the Three Ponds are unpaved and can be muddy after rain. Closed shoes with grip beat sandals.
  • Restrooms: the cleanest reliable option early on is inside the Textile Museum (with a ticket); near the end, the Art Museum has facilities. On Marktplatz and around the abbey district, look for the signed public WC, as cafe toilets are usually customers-only.
  • Food and drink: hit the Marktplatz market on a Wednesday or Saturday for Appenzeller cheese, fresh Bürli bread and seasonal fruit straight from the stalls. A coffee and a roll runs a few francs and beats sitting in a cramped old-town cafe.
  • Photo: stand on the far side of the Karlstor and shoot back through the arch to frame the cathedral towers, far less crowded than the cathedral forecourt. For the city panorama, the viewpoint above the Frauenweiher at the Three Ponds is unbeatable in late-afternoon light.
  • Library rule: inside the Abbey Library you must wear the provided felt overshoes over your own shoes, and photography is restricted, so put the camera away and just look. Check stibi.ch first, as it closes for about three weeks in November.
  • Funicular ticket: buy a single-zone ride (about CHF 2.50) at the Mühleggbahn lower-station machine, or have an Ostwind day pass ready. There is no staffed counter, and the car runs on demand by button rather than a timetable.
AI Tourguide
Walk this exact route with a private AI guide.
Full GPS navigation, interactive stories, and a guide that answers all your questions. A private guide experience for just €5/hour.
Try This Tour

AI Audio Guide for This Tour

Standing on Marktplatz with the cathedral towers ahead and no idea why this Protestant city wraps around a Catholic abbey? Start the AI Tourguide before you set off. It is a voice-first guide built right into this walk that talks with you the whole way, greeting you, telling the story of the lace fortunes behind those bay windows and the rivalry between the abbey and St. Laurenzen, then asking what you want to hear more about and remembering your answer for the next stop. It runs in your browser, no download, and it costs a fraction of a human guide while letting you keep your own pace, breaks and swim at the Three Ponds.

AI Audio Guide Stories, history and fun facts narrated as you walk. No earpiece rental needed.
GPS Navigation Turn-by-turn directions so you never get lost between stops.
Ask Anything Curious about a building you pass? Ask your AI guide on the spot.
11 Languages Switch language anytime. No separate tour needed.
Try This Tour

Common Questions

Is St. Gallen safe to walk around?

Very. St. Gallen is a small, prosperous Swiss city with low crime, and the entire route stays in well-used central areas and the family-friendly Three Ponds. There are no scam hotspots or no-go zones to warn about. The only real hazards are practical: uneven cobblestones in the old town and unpaved, occasionally slippery paths around the ponds after rain. Normal big-city awareness around the train station at night is plenty.

What if it rains during my St. Gallen tour?

This route has strong indoor fallbacks, which is rare for a walking tour. The Abbey Library, cathedral and St. Laurenzen are all free and covered, and the Textile Museum and Art Museum can each fill an hour. You can effectively shelter-hop the whole old-town half of the loop. The only stops that suffer in rain are the bay-window streets (still doable with an umbrella, just look up less) and the Three Ponds viewpoint, which loses its panorama in low cloud, so save the funicular for a clear spell.

What's the best time of day for this walking tour?

Start around 9:30 am. That puts you at the Abbey Library near its 10:00 opening, before the tour buses, and lets late-morning sun lift the colour off the painted bay windows. It also means you reach the Three Ponds in the early afternoon, when the light over the old town is at its best for photos. Avoid starting late, because the museums close at 17:00 and you do not want to be racing the clock at the end of the loop.

How long does the St. Gallen historic walk take?

The loop is 4.9 km, about an hour of pure walking, but plan three to three and a half hours realistically. That includes the funicular ride, time at the Three Ponds viewpoint, the Abbey Library and cathedral, and one of the two main museums. Add another hour if you visit both the Textile and Art Museum, which turns it into a relaxed half-day.

Do I need to pay to see the Abbey Library and cathedral?

No. Entry to both the UNESCO Abbey Library and the cathedral is free, though donations are welcome. The library asks you to wear felt overshoes and limits photography. Your only fixed cost on the route is the Mühleggbahn funicular at roughly CHF 2.50; the Textile Museum (CHF 12) and Art Museum (around CHF 15) are optional interior visits.

Can I do this tour with kids?

Yes, and the Three Ponds is the reason. The funicular ride is a small adventure in itself, and Drei Weieren is the city's swimming and play area in summer, so pack towels on a warm day. The old-town lanes are car-free and safe for small legs, though the cobbles are bumpy for strollers. The bay-window hunt works well as a looking-up game, and the cathedral interior is bright and open rather than solemn.

Do I need to book the walking tour in advance?

No booking needed. This self-guided tour is available anytime. Open the route on your phone and start walking. The AI audio guide works instantly, no reservation required.

What languages is the audio guide available in?

The AI audio guide is available in 11 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.

Can I skip stops or change the route?

Yes. Skip any stop, spend extra time at places you like, or start the route from any point. You can also ask the AI to suggest a shorter route.
AI Tourguide
Curated by AI Tourguide GPS-verified routes, reviewed and updated regularly.
Last verified June 2026
▶ Try This Tour No app · try it instantly from your couch