Top museums

The ‚sounding museum‘ in Seewen SO is a Swiss federal museum and houses an internationally significant collection of music automatons. The visitors will learn all about the history of automatic music while moving between high-precision mechanics and the magic of nostalgic melodies.

Discover the history of the Olympic Games from antiquity to the present day at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. Over 1,500 objects, interactive stations and an 8,000 square metre sculpture park await you on Lake Geneva.

The special museum in Romont, the Swiss Glass Museum, exhibits works of art that have been created on and behind glass. The exhibits range from Medieval glass paintings to the art of reverse glass painting. Romont houses the world's largest collection of the latter.

With the opening of the Forum Würth Rorschach, the 15th gallery of the Würth collection has begun its work. Situated directly on the lakeshore, it is the third Swiss location alongside Arlesheim and Chur.

The Château de Prangins was built in the 18th century by Louis Guiguer, a Swiss banker living in Paris, and has hosted illustrious guests from Voltaire to Joseph Bonaparte.Overlooking Lake Geneva, this beautiful listed building is home to the Swiss National Museum.

Swissminiature is Switzerland on a smaller scale. There are 128 models of houses, castles and monuments in the open air, distributed throughout the 14,000 square meter park. The models have been recreated authentically - with great attention to detail - and are surrounded by thousands of plants and flowers.

Alfred Baur discovered his love of art during his travels to the Far East. Over a period of four decades he purchased high quality art objects and ritual artifacts made in China and Japan. Today the Baur Collection is one of the most valuable in Switzerland.

For centuries the ownership of salt mines meant wealth and power. The salt deposits at Bex, discovered in the 15th century, are still mined today. The salt mines are accessible to visitors, a museum depicts the mining of salt from 1684 to the present.

The Art and History Museum has over 7,000 exhibits on display, ranging from prehistoric finds to modern paintings. The Musée d’art et d’histoire, which opened its doors in 1910, is the largest art museum in the city of Geneva and home to an extensive collection by the eccentric and distinctive Swiss portraitist Jean-Etienne Liotard.

Since the 1970s old farmhouses, stables, bakehouses or barns are no longer demolished when they are due to be replaced by modern buildings. Instead, the buildings are dismantled stone by stone, and rebuilt in the Ballenberg Open Air Museum.

At the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne, you will discover mobility, technology and communication on land, on water, in the air and in space. History comes alive, the future is tangible – an excursion in any weather.

At the Swiss Science Centre Technorama in Winterthur, touching is encouraged. Here you can explore scientific phenomena with all your senses. Over 500 experiment stations, shows and workshops invite you to discover.

Watch how the famous Gruyère AOP is made from fresh alpine milk. At the La Maison du Gruyère show dairy, you can look directly into the copper kettle of the cheesemakers and taste the cheese in 3 degrees of ripeness.

With its collection of 150,000 items in some 80 languages, the Martin Bodmer Foundation is among the largest private libraries in the world.