The Secrets of Bern

You stand before a squat, powerful tower that once marked the edge of the known world — at least, the world as medieval Bern understood it. The Käfigturm was first raised around 1256 as the western gate of the city's second ring of fortifications. Every merchant, pilgrim, and soldier entering Bern passed through its shadow.

But Bern kept growing, and by the 1340s the city walls had pushed further west, leaving the tower stranded. With no gate left to guard, the authorities turned it into a prison. The current Baroque structure dates from 1641–1644. Today, this former jail houses the Polit-Forum Bern — a centre for exhibitions and debates about democracy and civil rights.

Every city has a clock tower. Bern's changed the course of science. The Zytglogge first rose around 1218 as a simple guard tower. After the catastrophic fire of 1405, it was rebuilt. In 1530, clockmaker Kaspar Brunner installed an extraordinary astronomical mechanism — an astrolabe dial showing the position of the sun, the moon's phases, the day of the week, and the month.

But the Zytglogge's most revolutionary moment came in 1905. A young patent clerk named Albert Einstein rode the tram past this tower every day. One evening, he looked back at the clock face receding behind him and asked himself: what if I were travelling at the speed of light? That single image cracked open the nature of time itself. Weeks later, he published his Special Theory of Relativity.

You're standing in Kornhausplatz, and in the centre of it all, a painted stone giant is devouring a naked baby. Welcome to the Kindlifresserbrunnen, literally the 'Child-Eater Fountain,' one of Bern's eleven Renaissance fountains and easily the most unsettling public artwork in Switzerland.

Sculpted by Hans Gieng in 1545–1546, nobody knows for certain what the figure represents. Theories range from the Greek titan Cronus to a carnival bogeyman to a dark anti-Semitic caricature. The fountain was originally just called the Platzbrunnen — 'Plaza Fountain' — and wasn't given its gruesome name until 1666.

Walk beneath the arcades of the Kramgasse and you're sheltered by a disaster. In 1405, fire raced through the city of wooden houses. The citizens rebuilt — but this time entirely in sandstone, and with a revolutionary civic idea: every building must extend its upper storeys outward over the street, creating covered walkways called Lauben.

The result is six kilometres of continuous arcades — the longest covered shopping promenade in Europe. After the fire, Bern imposed strict building codes that gave the Old Town its eerily harmonious look — a uniformity that would later catch UNESCO's eye.

Between 1903 and 1905, the second-floor flat behind these windows was home to Albert Einstein, his wife Mileva Marić, and their infant son Hans Albert. Einstein was 24, working six days a week at Bern's patent office.

In 1905 — his 'Annus Mirabilis' — Einstein published four papers from this flat that shattered classical physics. One introduced special relativity. Another proved that atoms exist. A third explained the photoelectric effect. The fourth gave the world E=mc². All drafted in this apartment, between feeding a baby and arguing with patent applicants.

The Berner Münster is Switzerland's tallest cathedral, its spire piercing the sky at 100.6 metres. The Last Judgment tympanum is the most complete late-Gothic sculptural ensemble in Europe: 234 figures carved between 1460 and 1501. Some of the damned wear the robes of bishops and kings.

Construction began on 11 March 1421. The tower wasn't finished until 1893. But the cathedral's most dramatic day came in 1528, when Bern embraced the Protestant Reformation. In a single convulsion of iconoclasm, 43 altars were stripped, statues smashed, paintings burned. Climb the 344 steps for the panorama.

Step through the gate beside the Münster and you emerge onto the Münsterplattform, a vast elevated terrace suspended 31.5 metres above the Aare River. The view hits you immediately: the turquoise river bending around the peninsula, and on clear days, the Bernese Alps stretching across the southern horizon.

Construction began in 1334 as an expansion of the churchyard — Bern needed more space to bury its dead. The bones of thousands of medieval Bernese lie beneath the chestnut trees where children now play. In 1897, the Matte-Lift was installed — an elevator connecting the terrace to the Matte district far below.

Architect Hans Wilhelm Auer designed the Parliament Building between 1894 and 1902 with deliberate symbolism. The dome, rising 64 metres, bears a mosaic of the federal coat of arms with the Latin motto 'Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno.' Auer sourced 30 different types of stone from 13 cantons.

In summer, 26 water jets dance across the Bundesplatz — one for each canton — and children splash through them while parliament sits in session just metres away.

In 1191, Duke Berchtold V of Zähringen built his fortress, the Nydegg Castle, on this promontory above the Aare. It was from this spot that the city of Bern began. But the Bernese grew to despise the castle as a symbol of aristocratic control. Between 1266 and 1273, they systematically demolished it — stone by stone.

On the ruins, they built a church. The Nydeggkirche was constructed between 1341 and 1346. After the Reformation in 1529, it was converted into a warehouse for 37 years before returning to worship.

The bear is Bern's oldest symbol, appearing on the city's coat of arms since 1224. Since at least 1513, when Bernese soldiers brought a live bear home from the Battle of Novara, the city has maintained bears in captivity.

In 2009, Bern finally reconciled its 500-year tradition with modern ethics. The cramped pit was replaced by the BärenPark, a 6,000-square-metre riverside habitat where bears can forage, swim in the Aare, and retreat into hillside dens. It's open 24 hours and completely free.