Media

Press contact, a short profile for quotation, our fact sheet and images cleared for editorial use – everything you need for a story about Thun Castle.

Press contact

Working on a story about Thun Castle, our collections or one of our exhibitions? Please get in touch directly – we normally reply the same or the next working day.

Yvonne Wirth
Director
Phone +41 78 849 46 66
yvonne.wirth@schlossthun.ch
Schlossmuseum Thun, Schlossberg 1, CH-3600 Thun, Switzerland

For filming, photography inside the building, work outside opening hours or interviews, please contact us a few days in advance so that we can make rooms and people available.

Short profile for quotation

Thun Castle stands on a hill above the river Aare and Lake Thun. Its keep was built by the dukes of Zähringen in the late twelfth century, and for centuries the building housed the courts of Bern. In 1886 part of it became a regional prison; in 1888 the museum moved in – the two operating side by side, with a single warden responsible for both.

The museum today holds around 17,000 objects relating to the history of the town and region. Its ceramics holdings are of national importance: Thun Castle has the largest reference collection of Thun majolica, the painted souvenir ware produced from the 1870s in Thun, Heimberg and Steffisburg for Belle Époque travellers, which reached an international audience at the 1878 Paris World’s Fair. The collection has been catalogued together with the CERAMICA foundation and is accessible online.

Other holdings include the armorial tapestry of Charles the Bold, taken as Burgundian booty, and an executioner’s sword from Passau. Since 2025 the museum has been working with the Thun civic archive and the Bern cantonal archive on the castle’s history as a place of justice. Families are handed a detective game at the ticket desk, included in the admission price: follow the clues, crack the code and open the wooden chest in the former prison.

Fact sheet

Governing body, building history, collections, current research, opening hours, admission and travel information on two pages:

Images

The images below may be used free of charge for editorial coverage of Thun Castle, provided the credit given is reproduced. Use for advertising or other commercial purposes is not permitted, and we ask that images not be altered in ways that change their content. For further motifs or higher resolutions, please contact yvonne.wirth@schlossthun.ch.

Click an image to download it – you will receive the file at full resolution.

Thun Castle above the old town. 2048 × 851 pixels Photo: André Maurer

Guided tour at Thun Castle Museum in front of a suit of armour — Guided tour in front of a suit of armour. 3543 × 2362 pixels Photo: Patric Spahni

Exhibition room at Thun Castle Museum — Exhibition room at the castle museum. 2953 × 1904 pixels Photo: Patric Spahni

Exhibition at Thun Castle. 2560 × 1707 pixels Photo: Patric Spahni

Exhibition room at Thun Castle. 2560 × 1707 pixels Photo: Patric Spahni

View into the exhibition at Thun Castle — View into the exhibition. 2560 × 1707 pixels Photo: Patric Spahni

The knights' hall at Thun Castle with fireplace and arched window niches — The knights’ hall with fireplace and arched window niches. 5038 × 2258 pixels Photo: Thun Castle

Thun with the castle and old town in summer — Thun with castle and old town in summer. 1920 × 1279 pixels Photo: Thun Castle

View from the castle over town, Lake Thun and the Alps — View from the castle over town, lake and Alps. 1244 × 829 pixels Photo: Thun Castle

Thun with the castle and the Blüemlisalp, hand-coloured photochrom print around 1890 to 1905 — Thun with the castle and the Blüemlisalp, Belle Époque photochrom print, around 1890–1905. 1024 × 762 pixels Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company

Thun Castle, daguerreotype by Franziska Möllinger, 1844. 500 × 690 pixels Collection Schlossmuseum Thun

Further motifs – the castle in winter, the view over lake and Alps, Thun majolica, the armorial tapestry, the executioner’s sword and the detective game – are available on request.

Press releases

We send our press releases directly to interested newsrooms. If you would like to be added to the list, a short message to yvonne.wirth@schlossthun.ch is all it takes.

Press review

Selected reports and articles about the Thun museum castle, in chronological order: to the press review →

Visiting us

Journalists are welcome here. We will show you the building, open up holdings that are not on display, and put you in touch with our research partners. Admission and the guided tour are on us.

There is no obligation to publish, and we do not ask to see your text before publication.

Getting here

Ten minutes on foot from Thun railway station through the old town
BLS lake steamers from the Thun landing stage
Bern–Thun about 20 minutes, Interlaken–Thun about 20 minutes