Traveling Switzerland

Visiting the UNESCO heritage center of Bern

From Swiss history and medieval architecture to modern physics with Einstein.

The Old City (German: Altstadt) of Bern is the medieval center of the city, de facto capital of Switzerland. It is a UNESCO heritage center, and you’ll see here why.

Bern’s Old City is mostly built on a narrow hill bordered on three sides by the Aare river as it makes a turn. I took a screenshot out of Google maps, that makes these “three sides” clear:

On the right with green fonts, you see the Bear Park (Barengraben) and the Rosengarten, which I featured just a few days ago in two dedicated stories:

But in this story, I’m going to focus on the Old City itself, whose core has remained unchanged since the middle ages. After a major fire in 1405, much of the city was rebuilt in sandstone, and despite some further construction in the XVIII century, Bern’s old city has retained its medieval architecture.

The historical center of Bern has several churches, fountains, and bridges connecting the core of the city to its surroundings by going over the beautiful Aare river. In addition to many historical buildings, the seats of the federal, cantonal and local governments also stand in the Old City.

Bern’s old center and UNESCO

The historical area of the old town of Bern is a UNESCO heritage site since 1983 due to the dense, well-preserved medieval core, and at the same time stands as an excellent example of incorporating the modern world into a medieval city. Here’s Bern’s Old City in the official UNESCO listing of world heritage centers:

As the document explains, Bern’s center is an example of a city that has conserved its medieval urban structure while responding over time to the increasingly complex functions of a capital city of a modern State.

Here you see for example one of the old fountains, by the way fully functional and supplying drinkable water, at the same time as a modern bus passes by:

Home to one of the biggest scientists that ever existed

Even if you aren’t into science, you’ve heard of Albert Einstein.

Well after resigning his German citizenship, he lived in various cities and towns in Switzerland. In particular, when he worked at the Patents Office of Bern, he lived right in the old town. More exactly on the second floor of a flat located on the number 49 of the Old Town’s main street, Kramgasse.

Indeed, it was while living here that Einstein wrote his Annus mirabilis papers, which stand as some of the greatest contributions to Physics ever:

Here’s the end of one of these papers, in the journal Annalen der Physik (Annals of Physics), which attests to his living in Bern at the time:

To me as a scientist, the most astonishing aspect of all this is that Einstein wrote all these papers while having no affiliation to any university or research center. Something almost inconceivable today.

Assuming unchanged street names, numbers and zip codes, Einstein's postal address was something like this between 1903 and 1905:

Kramgasse 49, CH-3011 Bern

Today there’s a cafe/museum right there, and you can see some plates attesting to the stay of the genius in those times:

That’s supposedly his flat. Second floor of Kramgasse 49:

You can know more about this by visiting the museum or its dedicated website:

And by the way, did you notice the doors going down in “Einstein café and bel étage” in one of the photographs above? That’s because most buildings of the Kramgasse have such an underlevel structure, today used mostly for shops. Here’s another, at a shop that sells absinthe:

Continuing a walk around the Old Town

Several other historical buildings, still in use today, are easily reachable. In particular, at the Bundesplatz converge three key buildings: those of the Bundeshaus (assembly building, or parliament), the Swiss National Bank, and Bank of the Canton of Bern.

Here’s the building of the Parliament, with a script that includes the Latin name of the country, Confoederationis Helveticae which you see reflected in the country’s internet and zip codes (CH). The full script “Curia Confoederationis Helveticae” means something like “House of the Swiss Confederation”.

Closing the story as we cross the river out of the Old Town

As we saw in the introduction, the city is located in a tight corner of the river Aare:

A beautiful river, by the way. So clean, that locals swim in it in summer. In fact, you can swim or sail the Aare from Thun until Bern rather easily.

As you see here, it’s all very green right off the old center:

Indeed it’s a rather small city, certainly much smaller than Zurich and even smaller than other less known cities. See where Bern sits in a list of the largest Swiss cities:

This data is from SwissInfo.ch, where you can get to know the answer to this question: Why is Bern the capital of Switzerland? (if it’s so small)

Right outside the center, you have the Bear Park, the Rosengarten, and great views of the city. A perfect place to end your visit and then head back to the main train station which is right at the other end of the Old Town, no more than 20–30 minutes walk.

And before you leave, right in the Rosengarten, you have a chance to bring home a postcard with Einstein:

Further reads about Bern and traveling Switzerland

There are many cities that are worth a visit in Switzerland. Here for example JamieWrites wrote about the reasons to visit Zurich:

And just two of the several other places worth a visit that I’ve shown you:

For more natural places…

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