Tourist attractions Berne

This centre, which opened in 2005, houses the world's most extensive collection of works by Paul Klee (1879-1940), including 4 000 oil paintings, watercolours and drawings, amounting to 40% of the artist's total output. The architecture alone – by Re..

The old town of Berne, which should be explored on foot, has retained a very picturesque Middle Ages character. Its streets, some of which are pedestrianised, lined with arcades, punctuated with fountains and beautiful old houses, provide an occasion..

This recently renovated museum lets you visit the Alps (60% of the area of the country) by exploring audiovisual productions, relief plans, maps and interactive terminals which explore certain points such as history or climate. Other sections are dev..

The museum contains very varied collections relating to prehistory, history, archaeology and ethnography. See in particular the attractive 18C furniture of the Pourtalès salon, the booty taken from the Burgundians in 1476 at Grandson and Morat, preci..

The Fine Art Museum is rich with collections which devote a lot of space to various trends of painting, from the Italian primitives to the impressionists and cubists, and contains many canvases by Swiss painters, but above all a remarkable collection..

This interesting museum over five levels offers the chance to discover the life of animals from different environments, including those from the local fauna, but also collections devoted to mineralogy, gemmology and palaeontology.

Founded in 1961, this institute, devoted to the scientific research of tissues, contains European and Middle-Eastern pieces from Antiquity to the Renaissance. It contains a very large library and there are objects from the Cyclades, Iranian silverwar..

This tower was the West Gate of the town in the medieval era, and has a chime which operates four minutes before each hour. The many small painted characters, including bear cubs, which march to the sound of the Jester, make it one of the best loved ..

In the extension of Marktgasse, this more popular artery has also preserved all of its old character. You will see several attractive fountains, including that of Zähringen and that of Samson, together with the house (at No. 49) where the physicist A..

Lined with attractive shops, florists' stalls and 17 and 18C houses, this elegant artery is the centre of intense activity. Note in particular the fountain of Anna Seiler and that of the Marksman.

This building, called a cathedral, is in fact a collegiate the construction of which, begun in 1421, was completed only in 1893 with the erection of the tower, the highest in the country (100m). The tympanum of the main door, made by E. Küng, is a re..

Among the street’s old houses, the Erlacherhof at n°47 (the town hall) is a fine Baroque building of French inspiration. Approaching the cathedral on its chevet side, the view takes in its tower, nave, buttresses and pinnacles. Follow it round to the..

This huge garden, developed in terraces which go down as far as the river, adorned with fountains and water features, lets you admire a large variety of Alpine plants and, in the greenhouse, exotic plants.

This pleasant museum traces the development of communication through the ages. The history of the post and philately naturally occupy a prominent position.

Since the late 15C, the bears of Berne have been very popular and visited by tourists and inhabitants of the city, who come each day to bring them treats.

Dominating the River Aare, this 13ha park is home to European and Nordic wildlife: otter, muskox, lynx, wolf, bison, elk, reindeer, black grouse… It has hundreds of exotic birds, butterflies and rare local fauna, not to mention ant and termite coloni..

Franz Gertsch, born in 1930 in Möringen (in the canton of Berne), has spent his life exploring reality as it is perceived by the camera's lens, primarily in very large formats. From 1969, he turned his hand to hyperrealist painting and portraits of h..