Arts and Culture

Museums

930 museums... the sheer number is impressive and puts Switzerland far ahead of many other countries. The variety is quite astonishing as well, ranging from an attractive array of large museums with an international reputation, to more modest regional and local ones. In addition to the many different permanent exhibitions, there are over 400 special shows each year. Depending on the type of museum, you are invited to marvel and admire, and sometimes even to touch, try and experiment.

Swiss museums feature outstanding paintings by the French impressionists, from Monet to Pissarro and Renoir. The most important concentration of such works outside of Paris is shared by seven art museums located in the area between Basel and Winterthur. Then there is the international clock museum at La Chaux-de-Fonds with its unique collection of 4'000 time pieces and the museum of natural history at Geneva, one of the most modern of its kind, with 3'500 mammals on display.

Art, technology, natural history, ethnology and history are but some of the themes taken up by different museums. Not to mention hotel management and gastronomy, musical instruments, traditional costumes, dolls and toys, frogs, horses, cats and hare... The authors Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jeremias Gotthelf, Hermann Hesse, and Thomas Mann all have their own space dedicated to them as well.

Did you know that the Swiss Museum Pass offers you free entrance to 330 Swiss museums? And that children are included with each adult pass?

Discover the diversity of Swiss museums. Enjoy the many treasures, curiosities, and rarities.