Switzerland · Canton de Berne · Bern
Altenberg, Bern — Area Guide & Where to Stay
The Altenberg is a statistical district of Bern on the right bank of the Aare, its field name recorded from the 1300s, from the Latin altus mons.
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Where to stay in Altenberg
Where the beds are, and what that means for the visit.
This quarter has no centre. Its houses run along the whole right bank of the Aare and up the steep slope behind, closed at the top by stately buildings on the edge. Bridges are the way in.
The Untertorbrücke, the Altenbergsteg, the Kornhausbrücke and the Lorrainebrücke all replaced older ferry crossings to the old town. Clinics and the Kursaal provide the work now.
About Altenberg
What are the main landmarks in Altenberg?
The Stürlerhaus is the most striking of the country houses. It was built in 1659 at Altenbergstrasse 60 and is known as the Stürlerspital, because the Bern deaconess house used it as a hospital for nervous patients between 1903 and 1918. A plaque recalls 1844.
That was the year Sophie von Wurstemberger, who founded the deaconess house, began work in the sick asylum on the Aarbergergasse with one maid, and the plaque draws on the biblical story of the widow's oil. A restaurant has stood by the water since 1834. It sits a few metres downstream of the Altenbergsteg and took the name Café du Pont from the first wooden bridge.
The Kursaal closes the quarter to the west.
What is the history of Altenberg?
Wine growing in Bern started on this slope. The Altenberg was where it began, and agriculture dominated the quarter until the seventeenth century turned its vine houses and presses into country residences. A leper house came before any of that.
A medieval Siechenhaus and the small Marienthal convent were probably the earliest buildings here, and building proper set in during the sixteenth and especially the seventeenth century once the hospital had been moved away. The name split a district in two. Around 1840 the term Altenbergdrittel described part of the outer city district of Untenaus and took in the Lorraine as well, which was separated off in the 1860s.
The quarter has reached the Botanical Garden ever since.
Where is Altenberg?
The Altenberg lies in the Breitenrain-Lorraine Stadtteil of Bern on the right slope of the Aare between the Aargauerstalden and the Lorrainebrücke, next to Lorraine, Spitalacker, Rosengarten and the Bärenpark.
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Updated September 2026