- Museum Rietberg (Zurich): Some of Europe's most interesting collections were amassed by gifted amateurs with enough money to pursue their hobbies. This museum honors the acquisitive skill of Baron von der Heydt, who donated his collection to the city of Zurich in 1952. It includes sculptures and artworks from the Americas and North and South Asia, archaic Buddhist art, carpets from Armenia, and masks from Africa and Oceania.
- Landesmuseum (Swiss National Museum, Zurich): This museum traces the growth and development of Swiss civilization from prehistory to the modern age. The collections include prehistoric artifacts, mementos from the Roman and Carolingian empires, and artworks from Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance periods. There are also unusual collections of Swiss clocks, Swiss armor and weapons, and folkloric costumes and artifacts from each of the country's cantons.
- The Paul Klee Collection (Bern): Lying three miles east of Bern's Altstadt, more than 4,000 works of the great artist Paul Klee, born here in 1879, have been assembled under one roof. Today his magnificent art has been brought together as the finest example of "a Bern son who made good."
- Kunstmuseum (Fine Arts Museum, Bern): This museum showcases the great art that the capital of Switzerland acquired up until the end of the 1800s, beginning with a collection of medieval Italian primitives. The museum also has a collection of the leading Swiss artists of today, but focuses on old masters from Cezanne to Matisse.
- Musee d'Art et d'Histoire (Art and History Museum, Geneva): Geneva's premier museum devotes equal space to exhibits on the history of civilization, the civic history of Geneva, archaeology, and world-class painting -- everything from medieval to modern art.
- Verkehrshaus der Schweiz (Swiss Transport Museum, Lucerne): One of Switzerland's newer museums, founded in 1959, this collection pays homage to the railway, auto, and airplane industries that helped propel Europe into the modern age. It contains more than 60 historic locomotives, 40 automobiles, 50 motorcycles, and dozens of other conveyances. Other exhibitions are devoted to cable cars, steamships, and spaceships. There's even a planetarium.
Switzerland Travel Experiences
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Festivals and Snow in Switzerland
When I originally planned to go to Switzerland in February I didn't realise that it was the month of Fasnacht festivals. I was real... Continue reading »
