Bern travel guide

Top 10 sights in Bern

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1© Mike Lehmann, Mike Switzerland 13:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Zytglogge

   A clock tower of the thirteenth century whose astronomical clock of 1530 still runs, with a jester, a knight and a parade of bears performing before the hour. Einstein lived a few doors along the street while working out relativity, and the clock's chime enters the story.

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2. 

   2© Dietrich Michael Weidmann · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Bangerten

   A farming village on the gentle land north of the Aare in the Bernese Seeland, absorbed into a neighbouring commune in 2016. Wheat fields and scattered farmhouses run to the horizon and the old road from Bern to Biel passes nearby.

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3. 

   3© Photo: Andreas Praefcke · CC BY 3.0

   Kunstmuseum Bern

   One of the oldest art museums in Switzerland, opened in 1879, with the largest holding of Ferdinand Hodler anywhere. In 2014 it inherited the Gurlitt estate — a hoard containing Nazi-looted works — and took on the task of researching and returning them.

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4. 

   4© Wladyslaw Sojka · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Bern Minster

   A Gothic minster begun in 1421 whose tower was finished only in 1893, at a hundred metres the tallest in Switzerland. The Last Judgment over its main door has two hundred and thirty-four figures and survived the Reformation because the reformers liked the subject.

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5. 

   5© TimotheusB · CC BY 4.0

   Busswil bei Büren

   A village on the plain where the Aare loops, absorbed into Lyss in 2011. The canals around it are the work of the nineteenth-century Jura water correction, which drained this whole marsh and created the farmland.

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6. 

   6© Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France · CC BY 2.0

   Zentrum Paul Klee

   Renzo Piano's museum of 2005, three steel waves rising out of a field on the edge of Bern, holding about forty per cent of Paul Klee's entire output. The collection came from the family, and only a fraction can be shown at once because the works are on paper.

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7. 

   7© Paebi · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Balm bei Messen

   A hamlet on the southern slope of the Bucheggberg ridge in the Bernese borderland, from whose upper fields the Bernese plateau and the whole Alpine chain are visible on a clear day.

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8. 

   8© Krol:k · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Historical Museum of Bern

   The second largest historical museum in Switzerland, holding the Burgundian tapestries the Bernese took from Charles the Bold's camp at Grandson in 1476 — among the finest medieval textiles anywhere, acquired as loot.

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9. 

   9© Krol:k · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Kunsthalle Bern

   An exhibition hall of 1918 with no collection, which has consistently shown work before anyone else would: Christo wrapped it in 1968, his first wrapped building, and Beuys, Serra and Buren all had early shows in it.

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10. 

    10© Dsmntl · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Einsteinhaus

    The second-floor flat at Kramgasse 49 where Einstein lived while working at the patent office, and where in 1905 he wrote the papers on relativity, the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion. Two rooms are furnished as they were.

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1. 

   1© Andrew Bossi; sculpture by Hans Gieng (de) · CC BY-SA 2.5

   Kindlifresserbrunnen

   A painted fountain of 1546 showing an ogre in the act of eating a naked child, with more children stuffed in his bag. Every explanation offered — a warning to children, a Greek myth, an antisemitic caricature — is contested, and Bernese rather enjoy that.

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2. 

   2

   Bern Switzerland Temple

   A Latter-day Saints temple at Münchenbuchsee in Switzerland. It was the first in Europe and, outside North America, the second after the temple at Laie in Hawaii; President David O. McKay announced it on 1 July 1952.

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3. 

   3© Aliman5040 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Fountain of Justice

   A fountain of 1543, the only one in Bern to keep its original figure, showing blindfolded Justice with her sword — standing on the severed heads of the pope, the sultan, the emperor and the mayor, which was a considerable statement in the year it was carved.

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4. 

   4

   Bundesplatz

   The square in front of the federal parliament, where Swiss politics is done and where twenty-six jets of water, one per canton, come out of the paving. It is used for demonstrations and for a light show projected onto the parliament each winter.

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5. 

   5© Photo: Andreas Praefcke · CC BY 3.0

   Church of Saints Peter and Paul

   The first Catholic church built in Bern after the Reformation, consecrated in 1864. It stands beside the cathedral square and serves the Christian Catholic diocese of Switzerland.

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6. 

   6© Wladyslaw · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Käfigturm

   A baroque tower on the site of the second city gate, used as a prison from 1643 — the name means cage tower. It now houses a political forum, which Bernese find appropriate, and it is part of the World Heritage old town.

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7. 

   7

   Zähringerbrunnen

   A sixteenth-century fountain on the Kramgasse in the old town of Bern in Switzerland. It is a national cultural property and part of the World Heritage site of the old city.

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8. 

   8© Daniel Kraft · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Mosesbrunnen

   An eighteenth-century fountain on Münsterplatz in the old town of Bern in Switzerland. It is a national cultural property and part of the World Heritage site of the old city.

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9. 

   9

   Protestant Church of the Holy Ghost

   A Reformed church of 1729 at the top of the main street, and one of the largest Protestant churches in Switzerland. Its plain galleried interior is exactly what a Reformed preaching hall was meant to be.

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10. 

    10

    Natural History Museum of Bern

    A natural history museum in Bern in Switzerland. It teaches and researches with the University of Bern and receives about 131,000 visitors a year; the stuffed St Bernard Barry is its best-known exhibit.

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