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You can walk across Bern in an afternoon, yet the compact centre holds a UNESCO-listed old town, a clock tower whose centuries-old mechanism has kept time since 1530, and the flat where Albert Einstein worked out how the universe fits together. The whole medieval core sits inside a hairpin loop of the Aare, a river so clear and fast that on a warm day much of the city floats down it. Above the red rooftops rises Switzerland's tallest church tower; below them, a family of bears lives on the riverbank. Bern is Switzerland's quietly remarkable federal city, and it rewards a slow, unhurried visit.
Bern’s Old Town sits on a peninsula formed by a loop of the Aare on the Swiss plateau, and it wears its history lightly: founded around 1191 by Berchtold V, Duke of Zähringen, it became the seat of the Swiss federal government in 1848 and is the country's de facto capital, the "federal city", though Switzerland has no formal constitutional capital. With around 147,000 residents, it is small for a capital city, and its scale is part of the pleasure: the old town, the river and the parliament are all within a short walk of one another. We at Travelmyth, the hotel search engine that ranks stays by your interests and needs across 60 stay categories, have put together this guide to what is genuinely worth your time here, from the clock tower and the arcades to the Minster, the bears and river swimming in the Aare. Most travellers need one full day for the old town and two if they want to add the museums, the Gurten or a day trip.
The Zytglogge is the landmark most people picture when they think of Bern. It was built around 1218 to 1220 as the gate tower of the city's western fortifications, and as the city grew westward it lost its defensive job and took on a new one as a clock tower. Its name is Bernese German for "time bell", and today it stands 54.5 metres tall above Kramgasse.
The clock itself is the draw. The mechanism was completely rebuilt in 1527 to 1530 by the locksmith Kaspar Brunner, and it still runs. A few minutes before each hour a small mechanical show begins on the eastern face: a parade of bears, a crowing golden rooster, a bell-ringing jester and Chronos turning his hourglass. You can climb the tower on a guided tour, up a spiral staircase of about 130 steps, for a close look at the works and a view down the arcaded streets.
Bern's old town has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1983, and the thing that sets it apart is underfoot and overhead: roughly six kilometres of covered sandstone arcades, known locally as the Lauben, which shelter the shops and cafés and make one of the longest covered shopping promenades in Europe. You can cross most of the centre in the rain without an umbrella.
The look of the place is the result of a disaster. After much of the town was destroyed by fire in 1405, it was rebuilt along the existing medieval street plan. Over the following centuries, timber buildings were increasingly replaced by the grey-green sandstone façades that characterise the Old Town today. That continuity, along with the towers and the painted fountains, is what UNESCO recognised. The main axis runs from the railway station through Spitalgasse, Marktgasse, Kramgasse and Gerechtigkeitsgasse towards Nydegg, and it is best explored simply by walking it end to end.
The Bern Minster has Switzerland's tallest church tower, its single Gothic spire rising 100.6 metres over the old town. Construction began on 11 March 1421, but the tower was a very long project: it was only completed in 1893, nearly five centuries later.
The highlight before you even step inside is the main portal, carved with a crowded Last Judgement, one of the great groups of late-Gothic sculpture in Europe, the work of the sculptor Erhart Küng. If you have the legs for it, a climb of 254 steps leads to the lower viewing platform in the tower, with a view over the rooftops to the Alps on a clear day. Behind the Minster, the Münsterplattform terrace sits on a bastion high above the river and makes a quiet, shaded spot to look down at the Aare.
The Federal Palace, the Bundeshaus, is the seat of Swiss democracy: it houses both the Federal Assembly, the country's parliament, and the Federal Council, its executive. The domed central building was designed by Hans Wilhelm Auer and constructed between 1894 and 1902. Its dome rises 64 metres, while the whole symmetrical complex of three linked buildings runs just over 300 metres along the edge of the old city. Outside parliamentary sessions, free guided tours are offered, but places must be booked online in advance.
Out front is Bundesplatz, the square that fills with a market on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Set into the paving is a fountain of 26 jets, one for each Swiss canton, that children run through in summer.
Bears and Bern go back a long way: the bear is the emblem of both the city and the canton, and it appears on the coat of arms. The city has kept live bears near the old town for centuries, and their present enclosure combines the BärenPark, opened in 2009 on the sloping riverbank below the Nydegg, with the historic Bärengraben. The latter was Bern’s fourth bear pit and opened on this site in 1857; today, the two areas are connected by a tunnel. The bears can roam the grassy slope and bathe in pools and a water channel beside the Aare, and entry is free.
The Nydegg itself sits down where the river bends, just below the old town. It is worth the short walk for the lanes and the view back up at the town from the far bank.
Above the Bear Park, on a hill at the eastern end of the old town, the Rosengarten is the classic viewpoint over Bern. Laid out as a public garden in the early twentieth century on the site of a former cemetery, it looks straight across the Aare loop to the rooftops and the Minster’s spire, with the foothills of the Alps behind. It is planted with hundreds of varieties of roses, along with irises and rhododendrons, and it is at its best from late spring through summer. There is a restaurant here too, which makes it an easy place to pause.
The Aare is the heart of Bern's summer. It is the longest river flowing entirely within Switzerland, running for about 290 kilometres from the glaciers of the Bernese Alps to the Rhine, and in Bern it wraps around three sides of the old-town peninsula, passing beneath eighteen bridges. Its water is a startling glacial turquoise, and it moves fast and cold.
In warm weather, floating the Aare is a local institution: swimmers walk upstream, get in near Eichholz and let the current carry them down through the city to the Marzili, the free riverside lido below the parliament. The current is strong and the water cold, so it is for confident swimmers who know where to get out, and the free Marzili lido is where most people leave the river. Even if you stay dry, watching the city float past on a summer evening is one of Bern's real pleasures.
In 1903 a young clerk at the Swiss patent office moved into a modest second-floor flat at Kramgasse 49, in the heart of the arcades. He lived there with his wife Mileva Marić and their son until 1905, and in that flat, in his spare time, Albert Einstein wrote the Annus Mirabilis papers that reshaped physics, including the special theory of relativity.
The apartment is now the Einstein House, restored and open to visitors, with rooms furnished much as they would have been and an exhibition on his Bern years. For a fuller account of his life and work, the separate and larger Einstein Museum sits a short walk away inside the Bern Historical Museum.
On the edge of the city stands one of Bern's most striking modern buildings: the Zentrum Paul Klee, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano and opened in 2005. Piano shaped it as three undulating steel-and-glass waves that rise and fall with the surrounding meadow, so the museum reads almost as part of the landscape.
Inside is the world’s most significant collection devoted to Paul Klee, comprising around 4,000 works, a large part of his entire output; the rotating "Kosmos Klee" exhibition draws on it. One of the three hills houses Creaviva, a hands-on studio where children and adults can make their own art, which makes the museum an easy stop for families. It is a short ride by public transport from the centre.
For the widest view of Bern, head up the Gurten, the city's own hill, 858 metres high on the southern edge of town. The Gurtenbahn funicular has been climbing it since 1899 and runs up from Wabern, a short tram ride from the centre; walkers can also make their way up on foot.
At the top there is a park with a viewing tower, walking trails, a children's playground and a restaurant, and the summit looks out over the whole city, across the plateau to the Jura in one direction and the high Alps in the other. In summer the hill hosts an open-air music festival and has a 500-metre toboggan run, while when snow conditions permit, limited skiing and sledding are also possible in winter, so it earns a visit in any season.
Bern is sometimes called a city of fountains, and the ones that matter are the eleven Renaissance allegorical fountains that stand along the old-town streets, each a painted stone figure on a tall column. Around the middle of the sixteenth century the city replaced its plain wooden fountains with these elaborate carved ones, and many continue to dispense potable water from the city's water system.
The most famous, and the strangest, is the Kindlifresserbrunnen, the Ogre Fountain, which shows an ogre eating a child; its exact meaning has been debated for centuries, so enjoy it as the odd, unsettling landmark it is rather than a settled story. Nearby you will find the Samson Fountain, showing Samson wrestling a lion, and the Zähringen Fountain, topped by a helmeted bear carrying a flag. Spotting them is a good way to structure a wander through the arcades.
Bern packs a serious cluster of museums into a small city. The Kunstmuseum Bern, the museum of fine arts founded in 1879, holds a collection that runs from the Middle Ages to the present, with works by Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Ferdinand Hodler and Méret Oppenheim.
Across the river, the Bern Historical Museum is one of Switzerland's most important cultural-history museums, with a collection of around half a million objects, and it is also where you will find the Einstein Museum. Close by, the award-winning Museum of Communication takes a playful, hands-on approach, encouraging visitors to try out and interact with the objects, and is a popular destination for family outings. If you have a rainy afternoon, this corner of Bern is where to spend it.
Bern's central position makes it a fine base for day trips. Lake Thun lies about 30 kilometres to the southeast and is the gateway to the Bernese Oberland, the mountain region of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau; a short train ride gets you to the lakeside.
To the east, the green valley of the Emmental is classic Swiss cheese country, easy to reach for a slower day among farms and rolling hills. To the south, part of Gantrisch Nature Park forms the internationally certified Gantrisch Dark Sky Zone, known for exceptionally dark night skies, with hiking in summer and quiet, big-sky nights. Any of the three shows you a different side of the canton within an easy day's outing.
Bern is compact and walkable, and the old town is pedestrian-friendly, so you will do most of your sightseeing on foot. The city is well connected by train and has an efficient tram and bus network for the few sights, like the Gurten or the Zentrum Paul Klee, that sit a little way out from the centre. Guests staying in officially recognised accommodation within the city receive the Bern Ticket, which covers local public transport for the duration of their stay.
For the best of Bern, late spring through early autumn is ideal: it offers the best chance of suitable swimming conditions in the Aare, although the water often remains cold and the strong current is suitable only for experienced swimmers, while the Rose Garden is in bloom and conditions on the Gurten are generally favourable for hiking. Winter has its own appeal, with seasonal markets and the old town under a light dusting of snow, though the bears are usually hibernating and out of sight from around November to March. Switzerland uses the Swiss franc, and Bern, like the rest of the country, is not a budget destination, so it pays to plan.
Bern is small enough that almost anywhere in or near the old town puts you within walking distance of the sights, so the choice comes down to the kind of stay you want. On Travelmyth you can browse stays across Bern and rank them by your own interests, from boutique-style properties in the old town to family-friendly places near the river, combining any two of 60 categories to surface the ones that fit how you travel.