The villagescape is marked by impressive mansions as well as Palazzi built by returning mercenary leaders. One well-kept example is «Im Eselmätteli» (1684) with its ornate late-Gothic and rococo interior finishings. The parish church of St. Martin is regarded as the loveliest classical church building in Canton Uri. In 2007, Altdorf won the Swiss Heritage Society’s Wakker Prize for its landscape-compatible development and many admirable new buildings and renovations.

Altdorf is the setting for the apple-shooting scene in Friedrich Schiller’s «William Tell», in which the national hero shoots an apple from his son’s head on the orders of Gessler, the Hapsburg provincial governor. The Tell monument, a bronze statue by Zurich artist Richard Kissling, stands on the Altdorf market square, itself under a preservation order as a historical monument.

Altdorf is on the route to the Gotthard and the starting point for the Klausenstrasse through the Schächental valley and over the Klausenpass (1948m) to Linthal in Canton Glarus. Bürglen, Tell’s home village with a small Tell Museum, is at the entrance to the Schächental Valley. Altdorf has other museums: the Uri Historic Museum, the Haus für Kunst (art) and the mineral collection in the Chateaux A Pro.

An aerial cableway runs from Flüelen to Eggberge (1450m) with spectacular views of the Vierwaldstättersee lake and Canton Uri’s mountain world. In summer the area is an extensive hiking and biking region (Schächentaler Höhenweg to Klausenpass), in winter a family-friendly winter-sports region. The «Schutz-Wald-Mensch» (Protection-Forest-People) educational trail leads quickly down to Altdorf and gives information on the importance of the Bannwald forest to villages and inhabitants.

Above the town, the Allerheiligen Monastery dating from 1581 is Switzerland’s oldest Capuchin monastery. It was also the first Capuchin monastery to be built north of the Alps.