Back in November 2022, my mum and I spent a week gallivanting around Switzerland. As our time in the mountainous country was coming to an end, there was one place we had yet to visit but felt we simply couldn’t miss – Bern, the nation’s tiny and unassuming capital.
Bern is not your typical capital city. It’s not the largest city in the country – in fact, with a population of approximately 445,000, Bern is only Switzerland’s fifth largest city after Zürich, Geneva, Basel and Lausanne. There are also no famous “must-sees” in Bern, but being a UNESCO World Heritage Site in itself, I’d argue that the streets themselves are the “must-see”!
Bern became the capital of Switzerland in 1848 when the country became a federal state. It was chosen as such due to its tactical central location between the German- and French-speaking parts of the country. As an added bonus, Bern offered free land to construct administrative buildings. Zürich, which might have been the natural choice for a capital city given that it’s the largest city in Switzerland and also home to most financial and cultural institutions, was disregarded to ensure that one city didn’t hold all the power in the country.
Politics and location aside, there is also another reason why it makes sense to have Bern as the capital instead of Zürich – because Bern is a million times prettier than Zürich!
While I recognize that this is a subjective opinion and I might be biased because it rained the whole time we were in Zürich, Bern is just a magical place. Its UNESCO-renowned city centre features a network of narrow cobbled streets winding their way among well-preserved medieval townhouses!
As I wrote in the intro of this post, my mum and I spent our very last day in Switzerland exploring Bern. A misty day, but gorgeous nonetheless.
We found a parking lot near the old town and walked across the Nydeggbrücke bridge over the river Aare to the medieval centre. I’d read somewhere that the city centre is car-free, so we were a little disappointed to discover that it is indeed not. The busy traffic didn’t quite match the quaint and narrow streets. Still, we enjoyed a few hours of wandering around.
The centre is jam-packed with interesting sights to see. We explored Berner Münster, the city’s cathedral from the 15th century. We enjoyed a view over the river from the cathedral gardens. We visited Einsteinhaus, the home of Albert Einstein and his wife and son from 1903 to 1905. We went thrifting and browsed through many tiny shops. We saw the Federal Palace of Switzerland, which is the seat of the government and the parliament of Switzerland. And we gathered by the medieval clock tower Zytglogge to see the puppet show that plays every three minutes to the hour.
But best of all was Rosengarten, little park atop a hill overlooking the city centre, where we got the best views of the day!
Bern marked a beautiful end to our time in Switzerland, a country of never-ending beauty that I hope to revisit many times in the future! You can read all my posts from our time in Switzerland here!
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