Whether you need to refresh your grasp of physics or just love being in Bern, Switzerland, a visit to the Einstein Museum — part of Bernisches Historisches Museum, the city’s history museum complex — is always an enlightening adventure. The exhibition includes 70 films, animated displays, photographs and 550 original objects that illustrate Einstein’s transformative theories and discoveries. Einstein was a resident of Bern at the time he published his Theory of Relativity. Beyond professional accomplishments, the display also provides fascinating insight into the physicist’s many personal romantic entanglements, and the turbulent period during which he lived and worked, centered on the Holocaust and the bombing of Hiroshima.

For a far more esoteric museum experience, head to the Zentrum Paul Klee, devoted to the works of one of the modern art movement’s most famous sons. The building itself is a masterpiece, created by noted architect Renzo Piano, who used the site’s backdrop of undulating hills as his inspiration. Due to both the sheer volume and the fragile nature of many of Klee’s works, the exhibition changes every six months, allowing visitors unique and thematically-inspired views of the 4,000 paintings, drawings and aquarelles that form the foundation for the collection. Like Einstein, Klee was a resident of Bern, and the Klee in Bern exhibition (through Jan. 1), explores the artist’s multi-faceted relationship with the city, including numerous landscapes and sketches. The museum also boasts an extensive archive of biographic material highlighting his creative periods in Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, his years teaching at the Bauhaus and his friendships with fellow artists including Wassily Kandinsky.