Gurten Mountain Funicular & Emmental Day Trips from Bern

One of the pleasures of staying in Bern is how quickly the sandstone streets of the Old Town give way to open alpine viewpoints and pastoral valleys. Within twenty minutes of the main railway station, you can stand on the grassy 858-metre summit ridge of the Gurten, Bern's car-free local mountain in the municipality of Köniz, or board an S-Bahn train east into the green hills of the Emmental, famous for its deep-eaved farmhouses, the twelfth-century Zähringer brick castle of Burgdorf, and traditional wheels of Emmentaler AOP cheese. Pair these half-day outings with our 3-day Bern itinerary, read about regional cheeses in what to eat in Bern, and check local transit details in how to get to Bern.

Because both the local mountain and the eastern valley rail corridor connect seamlessly with the urban public transport network, travellers can enjoy high ridge walks, medieval castle halls, and working alpine dairies without renting a car or booking organized coach tours.

The Gurten (858 m) and the Gurtenbahn Funicular

Rising roughly 300 metres above the city's southern suburbs, the Gurten (affectionately called the Güsche in Bernese German) was preserved from real-estate development in 1951 when the voters of the City of Bern approved its purchase to create the public Park im Grünen, financed by the Migros Culture Percentage. Reaching the summit is effortless: take BERNMOBIL tram 9 from Bahnhofplatz to the Wabern (Gurtenbahn) stop, or take S-Bahn line S3 or S31 to Wabern bei Bern, and transfer to the Gurtenbahn funicular. Opened on 12 September 1899 as an electric rack-and-cable funicular and modernized in 2024 with panoramic red glass-roofed carriages, the 1,059-metre line climbs 267 vertical metres on gradients up to 33 percent in five minutes, and is completely covered by the overnight Bern Ticket.

For active walkers, well-marked beech forest footpaths also wind up the northern and eastern flanks of the hill from Wabern and Kehrsatz, allowing you to hike up through the woods and ride the glass-roofed funicular carriages back down to the tram terminus. In autumn and winter, when low mist occasionally lingers over the Aare valley, the summit ridge often rises into bright sunshine above the fog line.

Lookout Tower, Miniature Railway, and Gurtenfestival

At the top station of Gurten Kulm, broad lawns face two directions at once: north over the Aare loop, the Bern Minster spire, and the Jura range, and south toward the snow-covered wall of the Bernese Alps from the Stockhorn and Niesen to the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau. A steel observation tower offers elevated 360-degree views above the treetops, while families gather around the miniature railway and the wooden Chutzchen Kugelbahn marble run, and hikers follow forest trails down toward Köniz or Kehrsatz. Every July since 1977 (held annually since 1991), the four-day Gurtenfestival brings international rock, pop, and indie stages to the summit meadows.

Even on quiet weekday afternoons, the open meadows, barbecue pits, self-service terraces, and walking paths along the Ostsignal and Westsignal viewpoints make the hilltop a favourite local escape above the city roofs.

Half-Day Excursions to Burgdorf Castle and the Emmental

• Burgdorf Castle (15 minutes by rail): Direct S-Bahn and RegioExpress trains from Bern reach Burgdorf in fifteen minutes. High on a sandstone cliff above the Emme river stands the twelfth-century Castle of Burgdorf, built around 1200 by Duke Berchtold V of Zähringen in red brick as the largest intact Zähringer fortress in Switzerland, where educational reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi ran his institute from 1799 to 1804; since 2020 the entire castle has operated as a public museum, restaurant, and youth hostel.
• Emmental Show Dairy in Affoltern (Schaukäserei): Continue by train to Hasle-Rüegsau or Ramsei and take PostBus 465 to Affoltern im Emmental, where the Emmentaler Schaukäserei demonstrates how raw milk from un-silaged grass-fed cows is heated in copper vats in both a 1741 Küherstock cottage and a modern dairy to produce 90-kilogram wheels of Emmentaler AOP.

Combining Burgdorf and the Emmental in One Afternoon

Because Burgdorf sits right at the western gateway to the Emme valley, you can easily walk up through Burgdorf's terraced old town to explore the castle keep, chapel, and museum rooms in the morning, pause for lunch in the castle courtyard, and ride the regional train and yellow PostBus up to Affoltern im Emmental in the afternoon before returning to Bahnhof Bern for dinner under the Old Town arcades.

What makes a morning on the Gurten so appealing is how effortlessly it combines alpine panoramas with relaxed city-park amenities. Once you step out of the glass-roofed funicular at the summit ridge, level gravel paths lead across open wildflower meadows to viewing benches where the entire chain of the Bernese Oberland peaks stretches across the southern sky. On clear days, information plaques along the ridge help you identify individual limestone and glaciated summits rising above the foothills of the Thun and Brienz lake basin.

In the afternoon, shifting east by rail into the Emmental valley introduces a completely different side of cantonal heritage. As the train follows the Emme river toward Burgdorf and Hasle-Rüegsau, the urban apartments of the plateau give way to green pasture hills dotted with monumental wooden farmhouses whose sweeping hipped roofs reach almost to the ground.

Inside Burgdorf Castle, well-curated historical rooms trace how the Zähringer dukes fortified the valley and how Bernese bailiffs later administered the countryside, while the show dairy in Affoltern lets you watch cheesemakers stir warm raw milk in gleaming copper vats and sample cave-matured Emmentaler AOP at its source before riding the train back to the capital.

Because regional trains and rural PostBus routes run on reliable hourly and half-hourly intervals throughout the day, you can linger over lunch in Burgdorf's cobbled upper town or walk the meadow trails around Affoltern im Emmental at your own pace before returning to the city arcades for the evening.

Travellers who enjoy gentle ridge hikes can also link the viewpoints on the Gurten with forest paths descending toward Kehrsatz or Köniz, or rent a bicycle at the railway station to follow the signposted Emmental cheese route along quiet country lanes between Burgdorf and the dairy pastures of Affoltern. Both excursions return you to the Old Town in time for dinner.