Bern, Switzerland 17.08

We woke up in Bern, after another long day of driving. We were surprised that our tent was still standing, and we were impressed with our tent skills in the dark. After breakfast, we headed into town, and found ourselves a great parking space, close to the action. We were quite surprised by the crazy and complicated road lines. There were lines for bikes, cars, taxi and buses, and footpaths for pedestrians. There were paths for every imaginable means of transport available, pretty cool!

The weather wasn't that great, it was a little bit drizzly and cloudy. We wandered past the Town Hall, which had a statue of a topless man with tight, long pants on. He looked like a tradesman, so maybe it was supposed to represent the working class people. Just next to the Town Hall was a beautiful church. We could hear music coming from it, so we assumed that the Sunday mass was in progress. We decided not to join the church service or disturb everyone inside, so we didn't get to see it.

We immediately fell in love with Bern, as soon as we saw its beautiful, quaint little streets. On each side of the street, there were huge, beautiful houses or apartments, stretching for whole blocks. Along the front of the buildings, there were flags with the Bern emblem, the bear, as well as Swiss national flags. We were also fascinated by the colourful statues on the building fronts, and the similar ones that were on top of fountains. You could find these colourful fountains, every few hundred metres. Each of them had a colourful sculpture of a person or an animal, often quite comical looking as well.

We were very surprised to find that all of the shops seemed to be closed that day. Bern is the capital city of Switzerland, we expected it to be like a big city, where nothing ever closes. In fact Bern only has 123,000 occupants, so its small town feel is actually genuine.
We did notice that every shop seemed to have an underground cellar in front of it. These cellars were built by the cautious Swiss government, as bomb shelters for its citizens in case the World Wars reached them. Nowadays, they use them as little shops and cafes, with big wooden doors at the top, and a staircase that leads into the shop below. There was only one open while we were there. It was an internet cafe.
There were so many unusual shops along these streets. Highly expensive shops mixed in with shops selling fancy knick-knacks and collectible items. There were shops with fancy Swiss watches, next to shops with coloured glass crockery, stores selling penis-shaped peppermint candy, Hermes scarfs, fancy coffee makers, piano accordions and bike couriers' clothing, bags and accessories.
The Swiss are apparently quite fond of collecting things and keeping hobbies. They collect common things like stamps, and sometimes much more unusual and larger things. This love of tinkering and attention to detail is probably why the Swiss are so good at making complicated little things like watches.
As we walked further down the street, we saw a huge crowd of tourists beneath a big clock tower. We realised that it was the Zeitglockentrum. This clock is famous because every hour, it chimes and little colourful, revolving figures come out of the clock. We approached the clock, just as the figures had stopped moving, but we enjoyed the chimes of the clock and the excitement of the crowd.
After seeing the clock tower, we walked further into the city and came across another famous Bern icon. This time, it was the Ogre Fountain. This fountain was very similar to the other fountains around the city, except that it had a statue of an ogre eating handfuls of children. It must have been part of a Swiss childrens story, maybe something to scare them into behaving. Not far from the fountain, we found a big bridge. We decided to walk across it to see the river below. We were quite shocked when we saw it. It was such a bright turquoise blue, and the current was faster than any river we had seen before. If you fell into that water, you'd be a kilometre downstream before you could even blink.
Next we came across a huge building with a plaza in front of it. The plaza was filled with fountains, that sprang up from the ground at different times. We were tempted to run through, at just the right moment and try not to get wet. Another girl beat us to it, and started running through the fountain. We chickened out though, as the weather was really cold and we didn't want to take the chance of being wet all day.
Just near the building with the fountains, there was a big old building, that was an original Swiss bank! We were quite excited to see it, as the Swiss banks are a famous institution and are always in movies and books.
We were very impressed with the banking system in Switzerland actually. Every time we used an ATM, it informed us on the screen of all the charges that would be applied by our bank and their bank, instead of leaving it to be discovered on our bank statement later. We were also quite surprised to find that their bank notes have the writing and pictures displayed vertically, instead of horizontally like all the other notes we have seen in our lives.
Next we went to visit the Gothic Cathedral called the 'Munster'. It was built in the 15th century, and has a huge tower. The front of the church was quite pretty, with a big sculptured facade that almost looked like an altar piece.
The interior of the church was quite plain compared to many of the amazing churches that we had seen up to this point. There is one defining and famous feature though; the 12m stained glass window. It was a very beautiful window, and we were able to get behind the altar to have a close look at it.
Our next task of course, was to climb the huge tower. There were two levels of the tower, that we were able to reach. The first one was about half way up the tower, and the second one was at the very top!

When we reached the top, we fell in love with Bern even more. It was just so pretty! The terracotta roof tiles formed a perfect carpet beneath us. Little towers and turrets rose up from the carpet, and the streets carved little divisions and patterns within it.
The river Aure surrounded the city like a peninsula, and glowed like a bright blue ribbon. All around the water and the edges of the city, were beautiful forests and sections of trees. In the background there were mountains rising up on all sides. It was everything we had imagined Switzerland to be.
When we reached the foyer of the church again, we decided to buy some postcards. We found of the city in winter. It was even more beautiful with snow covering the roofs and little fairy lights and Christmans lights everywhere. We decided that we would like to retire in Bern, and spend our days occupied with little hobbies and snuggling away in a little snow covered cabin.

After seeing the church, we went to see the symbol of Bern at the 'Baren Graben', or 'bear pits'. Just across the river, there are bear pits since which have been there since 1857. We were curious to see what the pits were actually like, so we crossed the bridge on the other side of the city.

The pits turned out to be a large, sunken cement hole. There were plants growing here and there, and there was a platform in the centre. The bear wandered around aimlessly and disinterestedly ate the fruit that visitors threw to him. He looked pretty depressed, so we felt really sorry for him. Apparently there were more bears in there originally, so he was probably lonely. We did hear that are building a new and better place for him to live, so we hope that he will be happier soon. Just near the bear pits, there was an old Tram Depot. It had been turned into a tourist information centre, and a restaurant. We had some lunch here out on the terrace, with a great view across the river to the city. The restaurant brewed its own fresh beer, so we tried some of that, and some of the very German food that they served here. This part of Switzerland is German speaking, and they obviously follow the German diet here too. We had some great sausages and a big pretzel.
After lunch, we headed to the new section of town, where the main train station is. There was a shopping centre attached to the train station, with shops that were actually open! So we made the most of the shops, and bought some delicious Swiss chocolate. We bought a couple of flavours, but later we wished we had bought more, it was so amazing and creamy!

We also looked for an alcohol shop, so we could buy another very famous product from Switzerland - absinthe! Absinthe was only made legal again in Switzerland in 2004. It was banned a long time ago because of bad publicity and stories about it effects. Scientist now say that absinthe doesn't actually have much more effect than the effects of the alcohol itself, and that the alcohol strongly counteracts the other ingredients which might have a halucinogenic effect.

We decided to buy some anyway, just because we could, and because we were in Switzerland. We tried some when we got back to the campsite, but it didn't really do anything other than make us tipsy.

After dinner, we went for a walk along the river near our campsite. It was so beautiful, and the sun was setting while we were walking. The water was really blue next to our campsite as well, but the current looked quite scary looking. It was such a beautiful end to our stay in Bern.

To see the photos from the post in slideshow mode, click on on the link below:
Bern pictures