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Biel/Bienne
Municipality in Bern, Switzerland

Biel/Bienne

Biel/Bienne is a bilingual city and municipality in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

Plan a trip to Biel/Bienne→From Bâle / Mulhouse

With over 55,000 residents, it is the country's tenth-largest city by population. The Biel/Bienne urban area has a population of around 100,000 inhabitants. Biel/Bienne is the capital of the Biel/Bienne administrative district. The city has been an industrial and watchmaking heart of Switzerland since the 19th century. With world-famous watch brands such as Rolex, Omega and Swatch based in Biel/Bienne, the city is one of the main centres of the Swiss watch industry and is also referred to as the "world capital of watchmaking".

Get in

Getting to Biel/Bienne

  1. 01
    Biel/Bienne

    The current railway station was built in 1923 in a neoclassical style.

See

Worth seeing

Biel offers quite a collection of architectural styles. The oldest buildings can be found in the historic medieval town centre (Bieler Altstadt / Vieille ville de Bienne). The newer town centre (Bieler Neustadt / Nouvelle ville de Bienne) offers international and Bauhaus styles, as well as the neoclassic style rail station.

  1. 01
    Stadtkirche Biel
  2. 02
    Volkshaus

    The 'house of the people' was built in 1929-1932 as a headquarters to the labour union.

  3. 03
    Hotel Elite

    The hotel was also built in the Neues Bauen style and as a symbol of the bourgeoisie it gives an interesting contrast to the Volkshaus opposite.

  4. 04
    Pasquart

    Museum of contemporary arts, photography and cinema.

  5. 05
    Neues Museum

    Over two buildings (Schwab and Neuhaus) this museum offers a variety of collections on art, watches, history, film and archaeology.

  6. 06
    Museum Omega

    This company museum on the famous Swiss watch brand is located opposite the factory.

Do

Things to do

Go swim in the Lake Biel (Bielersee) Take a look and stroll to the historic medieval town (Altstadt). Lake Promenade at the Strandboden. Do a cruise on Lake Biel. Go to the Taubenloch Canyon (Taubenlochschlucht) and explore the cascade. Pick up a bike and take a ride around the lake or the Jura mountains.

Eat

Where to eat

You should definitely try some of the food sourced regionally, such as the freshwater fish (especially perch and luce) from the lake Biel, the cheese from the nearby Jura mountains and the vegetables from the Seeland region, which Biel is part of.

  1. 01
    Restaurant

    The speciality of the house are the fish dishes, many of which are from the nearby lake.

Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Kabelleger / David Gubler (see Commons), Wikimedia Commons.