Candle dipping in Bern: the hour missing from the calendar
✓ Checked at the source · as of 5 October 2026 · 1 date still to come
Bern holds both ends of our survey's price scale: the country's lowest published wax price — tied with Basel — and the only place where you choose what you pay. It also holds the trap most people fall into here – a time that appears on no opening-hours sign.
📅 Dates 2026 — when and where
Kerzenziehen im Kirchgemeindehaus Marien
✓Friday, 20 November 2026 – Wednesday, 2 December 2026 · 13 days
- Organiser
- Reformierte Kirchgemeinde Bern-Nord und Katholische Pfarrei St. Marien
The lowest published wax price in the whole survey: CHF 3.– per 100 grams — level with the Stephanus parish house in Basel, which charges the same for coloured stearin.
Source: kirchen-nordquartier-bern.ch · checked on 8 September 2026
Kerzenziehen auf dem unteren Waisenhausplatz
✓Sunday, 29 November 2026 – Sunday, 6 December 2026 · 8 days
- Organiser
- Verein «Kerzenziehen für Jung und Alt, Bern»
The only heated candle-dipping marquee in the survey that staggers its stations by body height: 8 stations at different heights so children and adults can dip side by side. First held in 1991.
Source: kerzenziehen.ch · checked on 8 September 2026
Kerzenziehen im Innenhof des Berner Generationenhauses
date still opennot published yet
- Organiser
- Berner Generationenhaus in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Verein UND Generationentandem
The only place in the survey with a tiered solidarity price: you choose the price per candle yourself — CHF 4.– for a small budget, CHF 8.– to cover costs, CHF 12.– as a solidarity price.
Source: begh.ch · checked on 5 October 2026
🕐 Opening hours 2026
Many workshops open on set weekdays only — so each window is listed separately rather than as one continuous run.
Sun 29.11 10:00–18:00 (last entry 17:00) · Mon 30.11 to Sat 05.12 10:00–20:00 (last entry 19:00) · Sun 06.12 10:00–15:00 (last entry 14:00)
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| Session | Run | Opening hours | Date set? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kerzenziehen im Kirchgemeindehaus Marien | Fri 20 Nov – Wed 2 Dec13 days | — | confirmed |
| Kerzenziehen auf dem unteren Waisenhausplatz | Sun 29 Nov – Sun 6 Dec8 days | Sun 29.11 10:00–18:00 (last entry 17:00) · Mon 30.11 to Sat 05.12 10:00–20:00 (last entry 19:00) · Sun 06.12 10:00–15:00 (last entry 14:00) | confirmed |
Calculated from the ConvivaPlus dataset — every row with its own source above.
🚋 Transport & access with stop
- Meeting point
- Kirchgemeindehaus Marien, Untergeschoss, Wylerstrasse 26, 3014 Bern
- Nearest stop
- Bern, Wyleregg (BUS) — 165 m as the crow flies
- Meeting point
- Unterer Waisenhausplatz, 3011 Bern
- Meeting point
- Berner Generationenhaus, Bahnhofplatz 2, 3011 Bern
- Nearest stop
- Bern, Bahnhof (BUS · TRAM) — 41 m as the crow flies
Coordinates © swisstopo · Stops: opentransportdata.swiss (FOT)
📋 Good to know before you go
- As of 08.09.2026 the organiser publishes the period and the price, but not yet any opening hours («a flyer with opening hours and further details will follow»).
- Mind the address: the event is not held in the Markuskirche, but in the Marien parish house at Wylerstrasse 26.
- Mind the last entry: it is one hour before closing, and on the final Sunday as early as 14:00. Anyone going by the closing time instead of the last entry arrives too late.
- Prices: beeswax CHF 4.20/100 g, coloured wax CHF 4.00/100 g.
- Time needed according to the organiser: beeswax candle thickness 1 (2 cm) one hour, thickness 2 (5 cm) 2 to 3 hours. Coloured wax is much faster (thickness 1: 30 minutes).
- With beeswax you can dip up to 8 candles at once, with coloured wax only one.
- Schools and groups only Mon–Fri in the morning (09:00–10:30 or 10:30–12:00), 90 minutes maximum, registration mandatory up to two weeks before the start. Registered groups receive a 10% discount.
- As of 08.09.2026 the page still shows last year's edition. We do not carry it forward; the 2026 date is open.
- The dipping takes place in wooden huts in the inner courtyard; hosts help where needed.
✨ Highlights on site
What sets this candle-dipping session apart is not in its run dates.
On the lower Waisenhausplatz stands the only tent in our survey whose dipping stations are staggered by height: eight stations at different levels so a child and an adult can work the same wax side by side without either standing on tiptoe. The association has run the event since 1991. The tent is heated – in a city where the wind sweeps the square at the end of November, that is not a footnote.
But the real Bernese peculiarity is a time printed on no sign: the last admission. It falls one hour before closing, and on the final Sunday an hour before 3pm. The reason is practical: a beeswax candle of thickness 1 takes about an hour according to the organiser, one of thickness 2 two to three hours. Turn up twenty minutes before closing and you could not finish anything. Read the opening hours rather than the admission time and you stay outside anyway – at an event that only lasts 13 days.
And then there is the price, twice over in the same city. At the Marien parish house in the Wyler district, wax costs CHF 3.– per 100 grams – the lowest published price in our entire survey, whose top end is CHF 5.50; only the Stephanus parish house in Basel matches it. In the courtyard of the Generations House, by contrast, there is the only tiered solidarity price in Switzerland: CHF 4.– for a tight budget, CHF 8.– to cover costs, CHF 12.– out of solidarity, chosen by the visitor. Two radically different answers to the same question, three tram stops apart.
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🎯 Practical tips for your visit
Bern spreads its candle dipping across the city centre, a residential district and the station area. Four points decide which of the three is right.
- 1On Waisenhausplatz the admission time counts, not the opening timeAdmission closes an hour before the tent does, and as early as 2pm on the final Sunday. Both times are in the dates block above. Arriving after 7pm when it is open until 8pm is no longer enough.
- 2The Bern address trap: Marien, not the MarkuskircheThe Wyler district session runs in the basement of the Marien parish house on Wylerstrasse – not in the Markuskirche, even though the event circulates under that name. Ending up a district away is not a theoretical risk here.
- 3The type of wax decides the time, not just the priceThe association reckons on roughly an hour for a thin beeswax candle and two to three for a thick one. Coloured wax is much faster – a thin candle in about thirty minutes. With beeswax you can dip up to eight candles at once, with coloured wax only one.
- 4Groups: mornings only, booking two weeks ahead, 10 % discountSchools and groups dip Monday to Friday in two 90-minute morning slots. Bookings must arrive two weeks before the season starts; registered groups get a 10 per cent discount.
📊 Season comparison with nearby places
Where this session sits in the season — and which neighbour has already closed when it opens.
Each bar is a documented run. Dark = this session, pale = the nearest ones. Read a single date and you miss that the neighbouring village has already packed up when the wax here is only just warming.
- BernKerzenziehen im Kirchgemeindehaus Marien · Kerzenziehen auf dem unteren Waisenhausplatz · Kerzenziehen im Innenhof des Berner Generationenhauses
🗺️ Nearby sessions
The canton of Bern has 6 sessions, 3 of them in the city. One of the three has no 2026 date yet: as of 8 September 2026 the Generations House still showed last year's edition. We do not carry it over – the entry stays «date open» until the organiser publishes.
On price, Bern is the reference point for the whole survey: the Bernese low of CHF 3.– – shared with Basel – sits against the high of CHF 5.50 on the Uetliberg. Nationally the densest day of the season is 2 December 2026, with 26 sessions running at once; the season spans 23 September 2026 to 3 January 2027.
More candle dipping in the canton of Bern
All of the canton of Bern→❓ FAQ — answered
Answers from the verified dataset – no date carried over from last year.
People also ask
Related questions from our magazine
According to our survey, at CHF 3.– per 100 grams – at the Marien parish house in Bern and the Stephanus parish house in Basel. The national range goes up to CHF 5.50.
The one on the Uetliberg: it starts in November and only ends on 3 January 2027 – the only recorded session past New Year.
In Basel: on Barfüsserplatz and in the Fairytale Forest on Münsterplatz, dipping is part of the Christmas market and therefore runs almost to Christmas Eve.
The ConvivaPlus verdict
Bern has the most differentiated candle-dipping landscape in the survey: a large heated tent with height-adjusted stations for the classic family afternoon, a neighbourhood offering at the country's lowest price and a courtyard with a self-chosen contribution. If you know what you want, this city has it in every price bracket.
What Bern does not offer is duration. The Waisenhausplatz tent runs for only 13 days. Anyone thinking about candles in the second half of December will find nothing left in this city and has to fall back on the national calendar.
Freshness note: As of 8 September 2026 the Marien parish house had not yet published its opening hours («flyer to follow») and the Generations House had no date. Both are flagged as such above – check before travelling. The basis is the ConvivaPlus-Kerzenzieh-Kalender 2026: every entry was read individually at its source for the ConvivaPlus survey — this ConvivaPlus verdikt rests on nothing else.
Check the latest: ConvivaPlus candle-dipping dataset 2026 – Bern →
- ◆The missing hour: last admission on Waisenhausplatz falls an hour before closing – and as early as 2pm on the final Sunday, with closing at 3pm.
- ◆Eight candles at once – but only in beeswax: with coloured wax it is one. Anyone dipping for the whole family picks the wax by the number of candles, not the colour.
- ◆The name leads to the wrong church: the Wyler district session runs at the Marien parish house on Wylerstrasse, not at the Markuskirche.
How we check
Every date comes from the organiser's, the municipality's or the canton's own site — never from an aggregator, never copied over from last year. Next to each source is the date we last read it.
Where only a fixed rule is published, such as the eve of St Nicholas' Day, we work out the date and label it “calculated from the fixed rule”. Anything not yet published stays open — we don't guess.
Something missing or changed? A note below is enough; we check it at the source.
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In Bern's tent on Waisenhausplatz eight dipping stations stand at different heights – so that a child and an adult can work the same wax without either of them on tiptoe.
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🕯️ Candle dipping · 5 October 2026