EINSTEIN IN BERN SWITZERLAND
Apartment and Museum - Einstein Slept Here
The
year of 1905 was very good for Albert Einstein. He published 5 of his
most important papers and he
referred
to it as his “Annus Mirabilis” a
miracle year which included his breakthrough on his Theory of Relativity.
Einstein was 26, had recently married his sweetheart Mileva, taken a
job at the Bern patent office and moved into a two room apartment on
the main historic street of Bern, just a short walk from the town’s
famous medieval clock, the Zytglogge, with its hourly glockenspiel movements
of human and animal figures. He lived in the upstairs apartment at Number
49 Kramgasse street from 1903 to 1905. 
Walking outside to work, he daily
would pass the sweet shops with chocolate bears that had been a Bern
feature for almost 200 years. His
breakthough theory resulted from his riding one of the town’s tram
cars, contemplating time, travel and space. Bern today is a city of trams
and busses and easy strolling
through the historic streets resting on a promontory thumb shaped sprit
of land surrounded on three sides by the Aare river. The famous scientist
left Bern in 1909 to teach in Zurich, but recalled his years in the city
of the bear as the happiest of his life. You can discover a lot about
the charms of Bern by following the trail of Albert Einstein, the hometown
icon for this beautiful Switzerland city.
THE EINSTEIN HOUSE
The
apartment where Einstein lived with Mileva and their newborn son, Hans
Albert is now referred
to as the
Einstein House and is open to the
public as a museum. Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, moved with his
family to Munich, then moved to Bern in 1902 after receiving his teaching
degree. The apartment is located two minutes walk from the medieval town
clock in the direction of the famous Bern Bear Pit the “Baren Graben” along
the arcaded walkway, up a narrow stairway. The apartment has been recreated
much as it would have 
been when Einstein lived in the rooms, consisting
of a basic living room, anteroom
and foyer.The
furnishings are for the most part not the actual ones that Einstein had,
but present
a very
realistic
feeling of what his life there would have been like as well as some personal
family artifacts, a desk with replica of his notes, family photographs
and baby cradle for his son, then an infant. One is struck that ideas
that have completely changed the world and the future
came
from
a very
simple living room with lace on the table and delicate curtained window
that looked out on the world of the past.
EINSTEIN MUSEUM
From
the Einstein House one can head back toward the clock (after stopping
for sweet at one of
the irresistible
confectioners next door to the apartment)
and across the bridge to the Bern Historic Museum to be found at Helvetiaplatz
easily seen from the city with its distinctive neo-16th Century castle
style where a temporary exhibition on Albert Einstein’s life and
work has been turned into a permanent exhibit, The Einstein Museum. The
exhibit which was first assembled on the 2005 hundredth anniversary of
Einstein’s important year, takes up two floors of the larger museum.
You enter up a surrealist stairway of mirrors and picture giving the
feeling of flying through the cosmos or perhaps the mind of Einstein
himself. The exhibits of the Einstein Museum explore the times of his
life in Bern at the beginning of the twentieth century, his Jewish heritage,
and the nature and meaning of his work and theories, composed of film
documentaries, audio, animation, papers and memorabilia. The Einstein
Museum is only part of the Bern History Museum so be sure to explore
the rest of the exhibits which cover from Egyptian antiquities to medieval
times and Bernese history with beautifully presented displays.
A
guided tour of the Zytglogge Clock and the Einstein House can be arranged
with the Bern Tourism
office,
located in either the main train station
or at the Barengraben Bear Pit. A BernCard available from the tourist
office affords free admissions to the city’s permanent museum exhibits,
unlimited travel of the city’s busses and trams, and a discount
off guided tours of the Old Town, the entirety of which has been declared
a Unesco World Heritage site, and the wonderful 16th Century mechanical
clock, which can only be seen from the inside with a tour guide who has
the key. Ipod audio guides for your own walking tour are also available. © Bargain
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SEE ALSO:
BEYER
CLOCK & WATCH MUSEUM ZURICH
