Top choice
Watch Emmental cheese being made into 95kg wheels and taste it at the Emmental Open Cheese Dairy in Affoltern. Short videos explain the modern production process and how Emmental gets its famous holes, while traditional cheesemaking happens once a day over an open fire in the 18th-century herdsman’s cottage.
From Bern take the S-Bahn to Hasle-Rüegsau, then bus 471 to Affoltern (total journey Sfr17, one hour).
14.65 MILES
Bern’s answer to the Guggenheim, Renzo Piano’s architecturally bold, 150m-long wave-like edifice houses an exhibition space that showcases rotating works…
15.81 MILES
Bern’s flag-bedecked medieval centre has 6km of covered arcades and cellar shops and bars descending from the streets. After a devastating fire in 1405,…
27.07 MILES
You haven’t really been to Lucerne until you have strolled the creaky 14th-century Kapellbrücke, spanning the Reuss River in the Old Town. The octagonal…
15.75 MILES
Bern’s most famous Old Town sight, this ornate clock tower once formed part of the city’s western gate (1191–1256). Crowds congregate to watch its…
21.57 MILES
Sitting on a hilltop and looking proudly back on 900 years of history, Schloss Thun is the castle of your wildest fairy-tale dreams, crowned by a riot of…
27.06 MILES
Lucerne’s blockbuster cultural attraction is the Sammlung Rosengart, occupying a graceful neoclassical pile in the heart of town. It showcases the…
15.87 MILES
Fresh from extensive renovation and expansion, Bern's Museum of Communication reopened its doors in August 2017. Occupying almost 2000 sq metres of…
27.2 MILES
By far the most touching of the 19th-century sights that lured so many British to Lucerne is the Lion Monument. Lukas Ahorn carved this 10m-long sculpture…
5.01 MILES
This robust 12th-century castle could be straight out of a book with its drawbridge, thick stone walls and trio of museums focusing on castle history,…
5.02 MILES
Burgdorf (literally ‘castle village’) is split into the Upper and Lower towns. The natural highlight of the Oberstadt is the 12th-century Schloss Burgdorf.
5.18 MILES
The works of Switzerland’s foremost photo-realist painter steal the show at the Franz Gertsch Museum.
5.24 MILES
In the new Lower Town, the works of Switzerland’s foremost photo-realist painter steal the show at the Franz Gertsch Museum.
13.56 MILES
Architect Gaetano Matteo Pisoni restrained himself with the classical Italianate facade of Solothurn’s monolithic 18th-century cathedral, but went wild…
13.57 MILES
Just east of the cathedral, this is Solothurn's most attractive city gate. Nearby, the city’s former bastion makes a decent picnic spot.
13.58 MILES
The unprepossessing facade of this church (1680–89) disguises an interior of baroque embellishments and stucco work. All the ‘marble’ in here is fake –…
13.59 MILES
A knight, a king and a Grim Reaper jig on the hour atop this 12th-century astronomical clock with its hands reversed so the smaller one shows the minutes…