Bern
Bern, or Berne, is the de facto capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".
Bern, or Berne, is the de facto capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city". With a population of about 146,000, Bern is the fifth-most populous city in Switzerland, behind Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Lausanne. The Bern agglomeration, which includes 36 municipalities, had a population of 406,900 in 2014. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000.
Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Worth seeing in and around Bern
10 places within 25 km that the world writes about, in the order of how widely: the ones a visitor has heard of first, then the ones only a local would name.
- 01Stadion Wankdorf
Wankdorf Stadium is a football stadium in Bern, Switzerland. The second largest all-seater football stadium in Switzerland, it is the home ground of BSC Young Boys.
2.1 km · association football stadium in Bern, Switzerland · Wikipedia - 02University of Bern
The University of Bern is a public research university in the Swiss capital of Bern. It was founded in 1834.
800 m · university in the Swiss capital of Bern · Wikipedia - 03Federal Palace of Switzerland
The Federal Palace is a building in Bern housing the Swiss Federal Assembly and the Federal Council. It is the seat of the government of Switzerland and parliament of the country.
300 m · federal building in Bern, Switzerland · Wikipedia - 04Swiss National Library
The Swiss National Library is the national library of Switzerland. Part of the Federal Office of Culture, it is charged with collecting, cataloging and conserving information in all fields, disciplines, and media connected with Switzerland, as well as ensuring the widest possible accessibility and dissemination of such data.
800 m · national library of Switzerland, based in Bern · Wikipedia - 05Bern Minster
Bern Minster is a Swiss Reformed cathedral in the old city of Bern, Switzerland. Built in the Gothic style, its construction started in 1421.
300 m · church building in the old city of Bern, Switzerland · Wikipedia - 06Kunstmuseum Bern
The Museum of Fine Arts Bern, established in 1879 in Bern, is the museum of fine arts of the de facto capital of Switzerland.
500 m · museum in the city of Bern, Switzerland · Wikipedia - 07Zimmerwald Observatory
The Zimmerwald Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Bern. It has five telescopes of various sizes.
8 km · observatory in Zimmerwald in the canton of Bern, Switzerland · Wikipedia - 08PostFinance Arena
The PostFinance Arena is an indoor arena in Bern, Switzerland. It is primarily used for ice hockey and is the home arena of SC Bern.
2 km · ice sport arena in Bern, Switzerland · Wikipedia - 09Zentrum Paul Klee
The Zentrum Paul Klee is a museum dedicated to the artist Paul Klee, located in Bern, Switzerland, and designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano. It features about 40 percent of Paul Klee's entire pictorial oeuvre.
2 km · museum collection in the city of Bern, Switzerland · Wikipedia - 10Historical Museum of Bern
The Bern Historical Museum is the second largest historical museum in Switzerland. It was designed by the Neuchâtel architect André Lambert and built in 1894.
600 m · building of the historical museum in the city of Bern, Switzerland · Wikipedia
Ranked by the number of language editions of Wikipedia with an article on each, from Wikidata; the sentences are the openings of those articles, CC BY-SA 4.0.
What Wikivoyage says to see
Bern is full of history and museums. It also has quite a bit of public art, all of which is marked on a walking map which is available from the tourist office in the train station for free.
- 01Bern Historical Museum
Large historic museum, combining under one roof one of the country's most important ethnographic collections together with the Bernese historical collections from prehistory to the present day.
- 02Bundeshaus
- 03Zytglogge
It has been a guard tower, and a prison for women convicted of having sex with priests, but since the 15th century, it's been a clock tower with an elaborate astronomical clock.
- 04Einsteinhaus
Kramgasse 49, webmaster@einstein-bern.ch.
- 05Kunstmuseum
- 06Swiss Alpine Museum
A museum describing all aspects of the Swiss mountains: geology & tectonics, glaciers, weather, wildlife, agriculture & settlement, and alpinism and winter sports.
From Wikivoyage: Bern, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Things to do
- 01Gurten
The Gurten is a lovely hill just outside the city.
- 02Rosengarten
Little park with a splendid view over the old town.
- 03Gurtenfestival
In July the Gurten hill is host to an open-air festival with many national and international music acts.
From Wikivoyage: Bern, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Where to eat
Eating in Bern (or almost anywhere in Switzerland for that matter) can be an expensive proposition for foreign tourists. Be sure to "shop around" before deciding on a restaurant as many of them cater to foreign tourists (especially those serving traditional Swiss food) and have inflated their prices accordingly.
- 01Restaurant Zunft zu Webern
Gerechtigkeitsgasse 68, fax: +41 31 312 20 67.
- 02Coop Restaurant Bern Ryfflihof
Very wide variety of dishes, a nice curry station, salad bar and lots of desserts.
- 03Lo stuzzichino da Mohan
The food, dessert and the service are good.
- 04Tong Fong
It's a delicious Asian take-away restaurant.
- 05Sous le Pont
A nice restaurant in the Reitschule complex which serves excellent dishes.
From Wikivoyage: Bern, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Getting to Bern
- Airports
- EuroAirport Basel–Mulhouse–Freiburg (BSL), 73 km · Zürich (ZRH), 101 km · Geneva (GVA), 129 km
- Stations
- Bern Airport, 5.6 km · Bern railway station, 600 m
- Zurich → Bern95 km · quickest by road, 2h 17m · CHF13–17
- Geneva → Bern130 km · quickest by road, 2h 26m · CHF16–22
- Bâle / Mulhouse → Bern73 km · quickest by road, 1h 59m · €10–15
- Plan a tripFrom anywhereThe planner compares every way there from wherever you are.
Road and air are today’s quick answer; timetabled trains, buses and ferries load on the results page from the operators’ feeds.
No local-transport research exists yet for Bern
Our researched notes are written from a sourced entry: every shared taxi, boat and village bus with its operator, its rule, its fare and the year we saw it, and what could not be confirmed. Nobody has done that work for Bern. What is above is what we hold from open sources; nothing here pretends to be more.
- Get aroundAll hotel bookings in Bern include the “Bern-Ticket", which allows the free use of public transport within the city (zones 100 and 101) for the duration of the stay, including the Gurten funicular and transfer from and to the airport.
- Go nextYou can make day trips to beautiful locations like Spiez, Thun, Interlaken, Grindelwald and all the way up the Jungfrau to Jungfraujoch.
- Go nextOther pleasant day trips are to Biel, Fribourg, Gstaad, Murten, Neuchatel and Solothurn.
- Go nextGeneva, Basel and Zurich can easily be done as day trips but deserve a longer stay.
From Wikivoyage: Bern, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us; that article was last edited 2026-09.
- 01106 km
- 02360 km
- 03725 km
- 04763 km
- 05826 km
If you know how people move in Bern – the stand, the rule, the fare – tell us, and the note gets an entry.
Next door to Bern
- Könizmunicipality in the canton of Bern in Switzerland3.5 km
- Muri bei Bernmunicipality in the canton of Bern in Switzerland3.5 km
- Ostermundigenmunicipality in the canton of Bern in Switzerland2.8 km
- Ittigenmunicipality in the canton of Bern in Switzerland4.1 km
- Belptown and municipality in the canton of Bern in Switzerland7.3 km
- Worbmunicipality in the canton of Bern in Switzerland9.1 km