Zentrum Paul Klee and Bern's museums

Four museums, one city, not one day

Bern packs an unusual amount of museum-going into a compact old town plus one outlying building, and visitors from Interlaken tend to make one of two mistakes: trying to see all of it in a single day, or not realising that the “Einstein Museum” and the “Einstein House” are two different addresses with two different admission fees. This guide separates the four worth knowing about, tells you what each one actually contains, and works out a realistic day from Interlaken rather than a wish list.

None of these museums are in Interlaken itself — for local exhibitions on the town’s own history, see the Touristik-Museum guide instead. Bern is a rail trip of about 52 minutes each way from Interlaken Ost, which is generous enough for a proper museum day but tight if you also want to see much of the old town on foot.

Zentrum Paul Klee: Renzo Piano’s waves

The Zentrum Paul Klee sits well outside the historic centre, in farmland at Monument im Fruchtland 3, and the building is the first reason to go. Renzo Piano designed it as three overlapping steel-and-glass waves rising out of the landscape, completed in 2005, and it reads more like a piece of land art than a conventional gallery block. Inside, the museum holds around 4,000 works by Paul Klee — the largest single collection of his output anywhere, since Klee’s family donated the bulk of his studio estate here after his death in 1940 (he was born in nearby Münchenbuchsee and spent much of his career in the region before the Nazis dismissed him from his teaching post in Düsseldorf in 1933).

Because the collection is so large, only a rotating selection is on show at any time, arranged around temporary thematic exhibitions rather than a fixed permanent hang. That means two visits months apart can look quite different, which is worth knowing if a specific painting brought you here — check the current exhibition before travelling if you have one in mind.

The museum also runs Creaviva, a hands-on children’s art centre in the same complex, which is the best reason to bring children to this particular museum over the other three. Outside, a sculpture park and walking paths (the Fruchtland was originally an area of orchards and allotments) make the grounds worth twenty minutes even for visitors who skip the ticketed galleries.

Getting there: tram or bus line 12 from Bern railway station, roughly ten minutes, or about a twenty-minute walk. It is not within walking distance of the Kunstmuseum or the old town, so budget the tram journey both ways.

Kunstmuseum Bern: the oldest collection in Switzerland

The Kunstmuseum Bern, a few minutes on foot from the railway station, holds the oldest art collection in Switzerland with a permanent public mandate, tracing its origins to the 1870s. The permanent collection runs from medieval devotional works through Swiss painters such as Ferdinand Hodler — Bern’s own, and represented here in depth — to Cézanne, Picasso and other early 20th-century names, with a program of temporary exhibitions that changes several times a year.

The museum’s more complicated recent chapter is the 2014 bequest from the estate of Cornelius Gurlitt, an art dealer’s son whose father had acquired works during the Nazi era, some under circumstances still being investigated for looted or forced-sale provenance. The Kunstmuseum accepted the collection on condition it continue that provenance research, and shows parts of the Gurlitt holdings in temporary exhibitions rather than a permanent room — so it is not something you can be certain of seeing on any given visit.

Since a 2013 merger of the two institutions’ foundations, the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Zentrum Paul Klee share management and sell a joint ticket, which is worth buying if you plan to see both on the same trip.

The Bernisches Historisches Museum and its Einstein wing

The Bernisches Historisches Museum occupies a turreted, castle-like building near Helvetiaplatz, a fifteen-minute walk from the station along the Aare, and covers Bernese and Swiss history from prehistory through the medieval Burgundy tapestries (looted from Charles the Bold’s camp after the 1476 Battle of Grandson, among the museum’s genuine treasures) to the 20th century.

Inside the same building is the Einstein Museum, a large permanent exhibition — opened in 2005 for the centenary of Einstein’s “miracle year” of 1905 — covering his life from childhood in Germany, his years in Bern working at the Federal Institute of Intellectual Property while developing special relativity, through to his later life in Princeton. It combines biography with physics explained for a general audience, including material on the political upheavals of the first half of the 20th century that shaped his life. A single ticket covers both the general historical collection and the Einstein Museum.

The Einstein House: where the work actually happened

The Einstein Museum inside the Historical Museum is not the same address as the Einstein House, a genuinely separate small museum at Kramgasse 49 in the old town, and confusing the two costs visitors an unnecessary second entry fee bought by mistake. The Einstein House is the modest flat where Einstein and his first wife, Mileta Marić, lived between 1903 and 1905 — the exact period in which he wrote the papers on special relativity, the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion while working days at the nearby patent office. It has been restored with period furniture and a short exhibition on his years in Bern specifically, and takes thirty to forty minutes rather than the two hours or more the Historical Museum needs.

If you only have time for one Einstein-related stop, the House gives a sharper sense of the ordinary circumstances he worked under; the Museum gives a fuller account of the physics and the life. Doing both on the same day, ten minutes apart on foot, is realistic if you drop the Kunstmuseum or Zentrum Paul Klee from the plan.

What each one costs and takes

Prices are approximate — Swiss museums adjust admission most years — but give a sense of scale for budgeting a day.

Museum	Approx. adult price	Time needed	Distance from station
Zentrum Paul Klee	CHF 20	1.5–2 hours	10 min by tram
Kunstmuseum Bern	CHF 20	1–1.5 hours	5 min walk
Historical Museum + Einstein Museum	CHF 18	2–2.5 hours	15 min walk
Einstein House	CHF 7	30–40 min	5 min walk

Concession and under-16 rates are lower across all four, and temporary exhibitions sometimes carry a small supplement over the standard entry. Anyone travelling with a Swiss Travel Pass should check current museum partnerships, since coverage of individual Bern museums has changed over the years and shouldn’t be assumed without confirming at the ticket desk.

Building a realistic day

Two museums plus some old-town time is the workable target from Interlaken; three is possible only by cutting the old town to almost nothing; four in one day means running through everything and enjoying none of it.

A day built around the Zentrum Paul Klee and the Kunstmuseum works well together, given the joint ticket, but eats most of the daylight once travel and the tram leg are counted. A day pairing the Historical Museum’s Einstein wing with the Einstein House suits anyone specifically interested in Einstein’s Bern years, with time left over for the old town’s arcades and the Zytglogge clock tower. Either combination leaves the museum you skip for a second Bern visit, which is a reasonable trade-off rather than a failure of planning — Bern rewards more than one day trip across a longer Interlaken stay, and pairs naturally with the wider day-trip options from Interlaken.

For a first visit to Bern with no particular museum priority, walking the old town itself — UNESCO-listed, largely unchanged since a 1405 fire led to rebuilding in the sandstone that gives the arcades their colour — arguably matters more than any single museum, and the old town walking guide covers that ground in full. A guided introduction covers the same streets with context you would otherwise have to read up on separately.

a private walking tour of Bern’s old town works well as the first two hours of a museum day, since it orients you around the station, the Kramgasse and the Historical Museum before you split off to the collections that interest you most.

Beyond the museums, if there’s time left

Bern’s museum quarter sits close enough to other things worth an hour that a packed museum day can still leave room for one more stop. The Gurten, Bern’s local hill with sweeping views over the city and the distant Alps, is reachable by its own funicular from Wabern station a few minutes south of the centre.

a Gurten hilltop visit with its viewing point and picnic suits the end of a museum afternoon better than the start, when the light is better for the view back over the old town’s rooftops and the Aare’s loop around it.

Bern’s covered market halls and the weekly produce markets along the Bundesterrasse and Münstergasse are another easy add-on between museums, particularly on the Tuesday and Saturday market mornings when stalls sell Emmental cheese, bread and produce from the surrounding countryside — a taste of the region covered in more depth in the cheese dairies of the Bernese Oberland guide.

a Bern food market tour with brunch is a practical way to fit lunch and a market visit into the same hour rather than losing time hunting for somewhere to eat between the Kunstmuseum and the Historical Museum.

Anyone extending the day trip into the wider region should note that Biel/Bienne, half an hour further by train, has its own specialist draw for a different kind of collector — the Omega watchmaking museum, reachable together with a guided look at Bern itself.

a guided day combining Bern with the Omega Museum in Biel is worth considering for a second Bern-area day rather than folding into the museum day covered here, since it adds a full extra town to the itinerary.

Practicalities from Interlaken

Trains from Interlaken Ost to Bern run roughly twice an hour on the regular timetable, take about 52 minutes, and require no reservation. Buy tickets through SBB/CFF rather than at the platform machine if you’re short on time before departure; the Swiss Travel Pass guide and the wider trains, buses and boats guide cover ticketing options for the wider region if Bern is one stop on a longer pattern of day trips.

Once in Bern, the station is the hub for everything described here: the Kunstmuseum, Historical Museum and Einstein House are all walkable from it, and only the Zentrum Paul Klee needs the additional tram leg on line 12. Lockers at Bern station are useful if you’re carrying luggage between an Interlaken stay and onward travel — see the luggage and lockers guide for how that works across Swiss stations generally.

Bern’s museums are a genuine wet-weather option too, worth keeping in reserve alongside Interlaken’s own suggestions in the rainy day guide if a scenic-train day in the mountains gets rained or clouded out — a Bern museum day loses nothing to bad weather, unlike a trip up to the Jungfraujoch or the Schilthorn, both of which are wasted on a day with no visibility.

If Bern’s art collections leave you wanting a second city’s worth, the Basel art museums day trip guide covers a different, larger cluster further along the same rail network, better suited to a separate day than an add-on to this one.

Bern’s museums: the questions worth answering before you go

What does the combined ticket for Bern’s museums cover?

The Kunstmuseum Bern and the Zentrum Paul Klee are run by the same foundation and sell a joint ticket covering both collections, usually valid for a single visit to each within a set period. It costs a few francs less than buying two separate adult tickets and is sold at either museum’s desk. It does not include the Historical Museum or the Einstein House, which are run separately.

Is the Zentrum Paul Klee worth the trip outside central Bern?

Yes, for anyone with an interest in Klee or 20th-century art. The building itself, three glass-and-steel waves by Renzo Piano set into farmland east of the city, is as much a reason to go as the roughly 4,000 works in the collection, the largest Klee holding anywhere. It sits about ten minutes by tram from the old town, not next door to it.

What is the difference between the Einstein House and the Einstein Museum?

The Einstein House on Kramgasse is the small flat where Einstein actually lived from 1903 to 1905 while working at the Bern patent office, restored with period furniture. The Einstein Museum is a large modern exhibition inside the Bernisches Historisches Museum, covering his whole life and the physics of relativity with more space and more interactive material. They are separately ticketed and about ten minutes’ walk apart.

How much time do Bern’s museums need as a day trip from Interlaken?

Two of the four fill a comfortable day: the Historical Museum with the Einstein Museum takes two to three hours, the Kunstmuseum ninety minutes to two hours, the Zentrum Paul Klee about two hours including the tram ride, and the Einstein House thirty to forty minutes. Trying to fit three or four into one day from Interlaken leaves almost no time for the old town itself.

Are Bern’s museums open on Mondays?

Mostly not. The Kunstmuseum Bern, the Zentrum Paul Klee and the Bernisches Historisches Museum all close on Mondays, in line with the usual Swiss museum pattern. The Einstein House keeps its own shorter hours and is also best checked in advance rather than assumed. Plan a Bern museum day for any other weekday.

Is the Gurlitt collection on permanent display at the Kunstmuseum Bern?

No. The Kunstmuseum Bern inherited more than 1,000 works from the estate of Cornelius Gurlitt in 2014, some with contested Nazi-era provenance, and has shown parts of it in temporary exhibitions rather than a fixed permanent room. Whether any Gurlitt material is on view varies by visit, so check the museum’s current exhibition listing rather than travelling for it specifically.

Can children visit these museums comfortably?

The Zentrum Paul Klee is the strongest choice with children, since it includes the Creaviva children’s museum where kids make their own art. The Historical Museum’s Einstein section has some hands-on physics exhibits that older children engage with. The Kunstmuseum and Einstein House are quieter, more traditional spaces better suited to adults or older teenagers.

How do I get from Interlaken to the Zentrum Paul Klee?

Take the train to Bern (about 52 minutes from Interlaken Ost), then tram or bus line 12 from Bern railway station towards Zentrum Paul Klee, a ride of around ten minutes. The Kunstmuseum, Historical Museum and Einstein House are all within walking distance of the station itself, so only the Zentrum Paul Klee needs a second leg of the journey.