Is a quick stopover in Bern worth it with 3 kids?
 

If you were taking the train from Interlaken to Geneva Airport with three little kids, would you stopover in Bern for a couple hours to look around and have an early lunch or head strain to Geneva? We'll be near the end of our two week trip and our flight from Geneva will take us to Barcelona for a day before flying out to go back to the States. If it were just my husband and I, I would probably want to do a quick stopover. We've never been to Bern before and I've heard it's lovely. But we're not alone this go around. It will be December and we'll have three littles with us. I'm leaning towards just going straight to the airport. A supersaver ticket will save us about $40 so if we're going to go straight to the airport that's what I'll purchase online. What would YOU do?

Bern is nice but Geneva may fulfill your needs as well with such short time - anyway kids under 16 go free with the free Family Pass which you may or may not know about? Get it at any Swiss train station.

Berne can be a dorado for kids:


children's playground at Gurten above Berne (reachable by rope railway) with small train etc.;
Daehlhoelzli zoo along the Aar river with rope course;
Bear's Park along the Aar river;
Bernaqua spa with 18 basins, 3 giant slides, wild water canyon, etc.
medieval city center with big pedestrian zone;
museum of communication with experiments especially for kids...

but certainly not in December when it's usually cold, rainy and foggy.

and certainly none of the above in December for just a few hours.

Bern is a very nice town but, with the kids, I would go straight on to Geneva (and I am a bit Bernese!)

Bern's bear pits if still the same place as several years ago would be a fairly short walk from the train station or tram/bus ride and kids may enjoy that a lot. And on the rushing Aare River.

Have you considered taking the slightly longer route Interlaken to Gevena via the Golden Pass scenic train to Montreux then trains to Geneva. Montreux would be a great stop - lovely views. Any way more scenic than mainline route via Bern. GP route goes Interlaken-Spiez-Gastaad and Alpine resorts to Montreux before which it makes a steep slow downward creep to the lake - lovely. If interested check -
http://www.goldenpass.ch/en/goldenpa...er/view?id=14; good Swiss train info: www.swisstravelsystem.com covers scenic trains; www.ricksteves.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.seat61.com.

Kids would love VIP seats on GP train - in a compartment right up front next to driver's compartment so kids can think they're driving the train!

Something not mentioned are Bern's 16th Century fountains, depicting different figures.

Photos of some:

https://travelguide.all-about-switze...fontaines.html

The Bern bears would be hibernating...

The Bern bears would be hibernating...>

had not thought of that -I thought bears would not hiberate if they had a food supply but makes sense that they would and I guess they would want bears to naturally hibernate anyway.

And there is a new much larger beer place instead of that cramped pit I saw several years ago - not of use to OP but to others going to Bern the new bear park looks sweet - no more gross bear abuse as previously charged I guess.

https://www.bern.com/en/detail/the-bearpark

Bear 'park' is certainly a step up from the previous concrete pits with a total lack of enrichment, and masses staring down, throwing carrot bits all day long, but...one bear still anxiously paces the short length of terraced hillside just above the river. Still inhumane. I will never recommend it.

Yes still sounds inbearman.

I have been to Bern twice. I would recommend you to do a short recce of Bern. The architecture in Bern is quite different from other cities of Switzerland.

And the Christmas market of Bern, which is 5 minutes away from the station, is quite a thing. Also the famous Zytglogge is not too far either.

Interlaken to Bern is a cheap ticket and do the discounted ticket Bern to Geneva Airport.

https://www.bern.com/en/detail/berns...ower-zytglogge

Been to Bern several times but forgot what Zytglogge was!

And how seminal it was in Einstein's theory of time: A bit above kids and many adults' heads but:

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/2016...eaning-of-time