Holiday Inn Bern - Westside By Ihg
Bern is one of those cities that makes you want to quit your job and become a professional wanderer. Cobblestones, fountains, that whole medieval-charm thing. The catch? Hotel...
Bern is one of those cities that makes you want to quit your job and become a professional wanderer. Cobblestones, fountains, that whole medieval-charm thing. The catch? Hotels in the old town cost roughly the same as a small car, and parking is a contact sport.
Enter Holiday Inn Bern – Westside by IHG. It sits a short train ride from the center, attached to a shopping and leisure complex that looks like a spaceship landed in a Swiss suburb. Which, honestly, it kind of did.
Wait, It's Attached to a Mall?
Yep — the hotel is plugged directly into the Westside shopping center, designed by Daniel Libeskind. Think sharp angles, glass, and enough natural light to make your phone camera feel inadequate. You can walk from your room to a cinema, a restaurant, and a spa without ever seeing the weather.
Must Read
This matters more than you'd think. Bern gets cold, and Bern gets wet. Being able to wander around indoors in slippers-adjacent footwear is a genuine luxury.
Getting There (Spoiler: It's Easy)
The hotel sits right next to Brünnen Westside train station, about a ten-minute S-Bahn ride from Bern's main station. Ten minutes. That's shorter than most people's walk to their mailbox.
Driving? There's a parking garage, which is a sentence that will make anyone who's tried to park in Bern's old town weep with relief. Trains run frequently, so you're not stranded if you fancy a late dinner in the city center.
The Rooms: Quiet, Modern, and Weirdly Calming
Rooms here are bright, contemporary, and properly soundproofed. That last part is a gift, because you're next to a shopping center and a train line. Somehow, it all goes quiet when the door closes.
You get air conditioning, which is not a given in Switzerland. You also get free Wi-Fi, a decent desk, and blackout curtains that could stop a sunrise in its tracks. If you're jet-lagged or just bad at mornings, this is your moment.
Families get options too, including rooms that actually fit everyone without someone sleeping in the bathtub. Always a plus.
Hotel Inn Bern Westside By Ihg Bern, Switzerland - book now, 2025 prices
There's a fitness room if you're the type of person who exercises on holiday. The rest of us will be at the buffet.
Food, Glorious Food
The Breakfast Situation
The hotel restaurant handles breakfast, lunch, and dinner without drama. Breakfast is a solid buffet spread — eggs, pastries, cheese, the works. Swiss hotel breakfasts have a way of making you eat like you're preparing for hibernation.
Dinner and Drinks
There's also a bar area for a nightcap, because vacation rules say calories don't count after 9 p.m. I don't make the rules.
And if you want variety, the Westside complex has multiple restaurants a two-minute stroll away. Zero excuses for boring dinners.
The Bernaqua Spa Next Door
This is the part where the hotel quietly becomes a mini-resort. Bernaqua, the adjacent water and wellness world, has pools, slides, saunas, and steam rooms. Kids lose their minds; adults melt into a puddle.
You can spend a whole rainy afternoon there and emerge slightly wrinkled and deeply happy. Pro tip: bring a swimsuit. Buying one at the last minute is a financial decision you'll regret.
Hotel Inn Bern Westside By Ihg Bern, Switzerland - book now, 2025 prices
Shopping, Cinema, and Other Distractions
The Westside center packs in shops, a cinema, and cafés under one very dramatic roof. Need a forgotten toothbrush, a new jacket, or an emergency pretzel? Sorted.
It's not the postcard Bern of clock towers and bear pits, but it's ridiculously practical. Sometimes practical is exactly what you want after a long day of sightseeing.
Who Is This Hotel Actually For?
Families with kids, business travelers passing through, couples who want spa time plus city access — the answer is yes to all of them. People who insist on sleeping inside a 500-year-old building, though? Maybe book elsewhere. This place is modern, and it leans into it.
The Honest Bit
You are not in Bern's old town. You'll need the train to see the Zytglogge clock, the arcades, and the Aare river swim spots. That's roughly ten minutes each way, so it's barely a hardship.
If you want to stumble out of your hotel directly onto cobblestones, this isn't that. If you want space, parking, a spa, and a train that does the work for you, it absolutely is.
Final Thoughts
Holiday Inn Bern – Westside is the rare hotel that's both a practical base and a destination in itself. It's comfortable, connected, and refreshingly unpretentious. The kind of place that quietly does its job while you get on with enjoying Switzerland.
So go see the bears, eat the chocolate, and swim in the Aare if you're brave. Then come back to a warm room, a soft bed, and a train station you can walk to in your socks. That's a holiday that actually feels like one.
