Bern Old Town Self Guided Audio Tour

The open square in front of the Swiss Federal Palace, where parliament sits. Your audio guide explains the building's role in Swiss federal politics and the 26 water jets set into the paving, one for each canton.

A medieval gate tower that later served as the city prison, which is how it got its German name. Standing beneath the arch, the audio guide covers how Bern's walls moved outward as the city grew.

One of Bern's 16th-century painted fountains, topped by an ogre figure devouring a child. The audio guide walks through the competing theories about what the statue was meant to represent, none of them confirmed.

Bern's oldest tower and its astronomical clock, which still puts on a short mechanical show a few minutes before every hour. The audio guide explains the dial's calendar and zodiac faces and why the tower once marked the western city gate.

The second-floor apartment on Kramgasse where Albert Einstein lived while working at the Bern patent office and published his 1905 papers, including special relativity. You view the building from the arcade outside.

Bern's late-Gothic cathedral, whose spire is the tallest in Switzerland. From the terrace outside you look down over the Aare and the rooftops of the old town while the audio guide covers the Last Judgement carving above the main portal.

The arcaded lane running down towards the river, named after its Justice Fountain, where a blindfolded figure of Justice stands over four defeated rulers. The audio guide explains what the arrangement was meant to say to Bern's citizens.

The open riverside enclosure across the Nydegg bridge where Bern's bears live, the animal that gives the city its name and appears on its coat of arms. The final chapter of the audio guide closes the walk here.