Chindlifresser Bern

Chindlifresser Bern

Free drinks

Sebastian from Bern

Born and deeply rooted in the picturesque city of Bern, equipped with an insatiable curiosity for culture and culinary delights. Always searching for urban stories and tales - once as a history student, later as a journalist an now as a political advisor. Why Bern - Bern is known as the slowest city in the world, the music capital of Switzerland, it has the best urban swimming river I...
""Chindlifresser" in Bern is a gruesome 500-year-old statue of a 'child-eater', but it's also one of my favorite cold-water providers in the whole city!"

Elswehere I wrote about to properly use the famous (pretty, boring) Zytglogge clocktower. Well here is one more manual on how to properly use another famous (ugly, bizarre) tourist highlight. I am talking about Chindlifresser-Brunnen - literal translation: Child eater fountain.

Personally, I find the 500-year-old figure a rather cool postcard picture for tourists to send back home, for it represents the dark medieval "groove" of the old town perfectly. Also: The figure is not quite undisputed, since the stories about its meaning vary from a carnival figure to scare children to a fierce antisemitic stereotype.

But anyway: there is another reason that leads me there. Chindlifresser always serves fresh, brain freezing drinking water à discretion. No matter if the sun is toasting you in summer or the cold winter air dries you out: Bernese fountain water is the local drink of my choice.

Of course its not the only fountain in town - there are about 100 of them spread over the whole city. Another bizarre one is Schützenbrunnen just around the corner with a little baby bear pointin' a shotgun at the basement where the local arms club used to meet centuries ago. He also, of course, serves drinking water.

Proscht!

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Bern Spotter Sebastian

Born and deeply rooted in the picturesque city of Bern, equipped with an insatiable curiosity for culture and culinary delights. Always searching for urban stories and tales - once as a history student, later as a journalist an now as a political advisor. Why Bern - Bern is known as the slowest city in the world, the music capital of Switzerland, it has the best urban swimming river I know, a giant anarchist culture temple in the middle of the city and – yes – it's a UNESCO World Heritage site. I find that quite impressive for a town of 140,000 people…

About this spot

Kornhausplatz 18

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Nov 19, 2025

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