Bern, the capitol city
Bern is located west central in Switzerland
unlike most of the other big Swiss cities (Zurich, Lausanne,, geneva, luzern) it is not on a lake. However it is located on an incredibly beautiful river setting . The river almost circles the city, in a horseshoe shape
It is a really clean river ( the river Aare) with lots of trails and parkland and forested land alongside it.
near the parliament building are some lovely terraces that are high above the river they were a popular places to hang out in the evening and gave a great views of the river
the river is quite fast flowing and one of the favorite Summer things to do in Bern is to hike upstream, jump in the river and float back downstream.
After an early morning 15 mile run along the river trails, I got the chance to do that, floating dowstream for about 10 - 15 minutes. You could just lie back and let the river carry you along , at about the speed that joggers were running along the trail alongside. It was SO much fun I ran back upstream and jumped in again.
We did a self guided walking tour of Bern
One of the highlights of Bern was admiring the many beautiful buildings, with the
most striking thing about the architecture was the beautiful green sandstone most of the buildings were made of (from a local quarry).
we particularly liked the 26 - squirt fountains (one for each canton) that was in the plaza in front of the parliament building
another thing that was really attractive about Bern was that much of the town was closed to traffic , and there were huge plazas and squares where there were lots and lots of places to eat outside. There must have been thousands in the evening ,eating and drinking outside at these places
as might be expected in switzerland, there were a number of interesting clocks around the city
the shops in Bern were interesting in that many were in under 3 miles of arcades that line the lanes. In Swiss german the slang for the corridor under these arcades in Rohr (pipe). To stroll through the town is to go rohren (go piping)
there are also shops in cellars under the road , that have old-time hatches over them at night
these cellars were originally for storing potatoes and coal, and later wine, but these days house small shops
In Bern we stayed the night at the Backpackers Hotel Glocke, the cheapest place in old town, but it had nice rooms, common room and kitchen
Bern would have been a lovely place to spend a week or so. (As I sit here in a hot 100 degree Modesto day I cant help but think of that lovely cool , refreshing river in Bern.) unfortunately our plane back to Californina was waiting for us in Zurich, so it was off back to the train station for the 90 minute trip to the airport. Bern was definitely a lovely place to spend our last day on our trip to Europe.
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