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In the old street the pavement runs on the shop roofs. Your door may be up there.
Thun has something no other Swiss town has. Along its old main street the pavement is not beside the road, it is on top of the shops, running at first floor level with steps down to the street. If your flat opens onto it, that changes the delivery entirely.
The arrangement is genuinely unusual and it is easy to miss until moving day. The shops occupy the ground floor and the walkway serving the buildings above runs along their roofs, so the entrance to an upper flat is reached from a raised pavement rather than from the road.
A crew therefore starts each trip by carrying up a flight of external steps, before the stairwell inside has even begun. On a full household that repetition is the whole shape of the day, and it is not visible from an address or a photograph of the street taken at ground level.
If your address is on that street, say so plainly at enquiry. It is the single most useful thing anybody moving into central Thun can tell a mover.
Thun also appears as Thoune and Lake Thun. Whichever version you searched for, this is the same city and the same page. Give the mover the address exactly as it appears on your Swiss lease.
If the delivery address is near Thun rather than in it, try these.
Steffisburg · Spiez · Bern · Muri bei Bern · Lucerne · Sion · all Swiss towns
Away from the old street Thun is straightforward. The town sits where the Aare leaves the lake, on largely level ground, with ordinary residential streets and housing of a normal Swiss standard.
The castle stands on a rise above the centre and the streets immediately below it climb, but the built up area generally does not. Steffisburg adjoins to the north.
This is also the gateway to the Bernese Oberland. Addresses beyond the town, up the valleys or along the lake towards Spiez and Interlaken, are a different job with climbing roads and a possible shuttle.
These three are the ones that actually get asked about on a Thun move.
Furniture up external steps and an old stairwell.
What a raised entrance does to the number.
Sharing a lorry on the Bern and Oberland run.
A delivery to a second floor flat is a known quantity. A delivery to a second floor flat where the front door is already a storey up, reached by external steps from the road, is a third more climbing on every single trip.
The steps are also public, in a working shopping street, which means the crew is negotiating pedestrians while carrying. That is slower again and it is not something a bigger vehicle solves.
None of it is a problem, and all of it is time. It belongs in the quote, which means it belongs in the enquiry.
The town is Thun in German, which is what your lease, your commune and the utilities will use. Thoune is the French form and appears on paperwork prepared in the western part of the country.
The canton of Bern reaches from the federal capital deep into the Alps, so a canton of Bern address says very little on its own. Give the town and the postcode.
Registration on arrival is with the commune of Thun, and if your address is actually in Steffisburg next door it is with that commune instead, which is easily got wrong on a continuous built up area.
In the old main street the walkway serving the upper floors runs along the roofs of the ground floor shops, at first floor level, with steps down to the road. It is unusual enough that most people have never seen it anywhere else.
A crew carries up a flight of external steps before the stairwell inside has even started, on every trip. A second floor flat effectively becomes a third floor one, and the steps are public in a working shopping street, so pedestrians slow it further.
No, it is time. Crews here deal with it constantly and know exactly what it involves. It becomes a problem only when nobody mentioned it and the quote assumed an ordinary street entrance, which is why it belongs in the enquiry.
No. Away from the old street the town sits on largely level ground where the Aare leaves the lake, with ordinary residential streets and housing of a normal Swiss standard. The streets immediately below the castle climb, but the built up area generally does not.
Yes. Thun is the German name and what your lease and commune will use. Thoune is the French form and appears on paperwork prepared in the western part of the country. The town is German speaking, in the canton of Bern.
Then it is a different job. Thun is the gateway to the Bernese Oberland, and addresses beyond the town have climbing roads and may need a shuttle for the last stretch. Give the village name rather than describing the address as being near Thun.
It could. Steffisburg adjoins Thun to the north with no visible join, and people describe their address as Thun because that is the town they use. It matters because the parking permission is granted by the commune of the address, not the town you name in conversation.
Collection address, the Thun delivery address, a room by room list and the window you can work with. One vetted moving company from our network checks the route and the access, then comes back to you.
Send your move detailsOperated by DATACONTEXT (UK) LTD, company number 07425576, ICO registration ZB022743, registered at Norman House, Saint Saviours Estate, Abbey Street, London SE1 3DH. Running since 2010. We work with vetted moving companies in the AGM Group network.
Written by Darren Benjamin, founder of International Removals Companies, who has run the business since 2010. Last checked 5 August 2026.