Clock in Bern: the Zytglogge

This is a recent picture of the Zytglogge, the astronomical clock in Bern, Switzerland:

astronomical clock in bern, switzerland

You can read a lot about it at Zytglogge – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

astronomical clock in Bern

It’s hard to tell whether everything is working correctly. The picture was taken at 15:46 on Wednesday September 2. So the date seems right – the sun pointer at the bottom left is pointing to Herbstmonat 2, and the tiny window just below the top XII says Mittwoch. The other sun pointer in the zodiac ring is in the constellation of Virgo, which is also correct, I think. It’s only the time of day which I couldn’t easily find. That could be why there’s a simpler clock above it!

L1040029.JPG

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2 comments

  1. I know the Zytglogge well as for several years I used to work a couple of week in Bern (great city, BTW). Thanks for these photos, they bring back good memories.

    Say, you don’t happen to know what the oldest 24hour clock in existance today is?

    Kind regards,

    Andrei

  2. Hi Andrei. It’s an interesting question – I don’t know the answer. Dials are so often repainted repaired and restored that it would be hard to claim that one particular dial was older than another. I imagine that the clocks in Venice and Prague would be fighting over which was the earliest – some might claim to be as old as 1450 …

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