Bern Backpackers

Wie die meisten meiner Bekannten und Freunde auf und neben Facebook mittlerweile wissen, plane ich eine Reise nach Patagonien. Am 10. November geht's los. Das Motto? Raus - aber richtig! (habe ich das nicht schon irgendwo gelesen?) Zu diesem Zweck schlage ich mich auch als Anfänger mit TravelPod herum. Es geht mir darum, auf dieser Plattform eine lose Folge von Informationen und hoffentlich ...

... Unfortunately, the costs of living here meant it was really hard for us do anything and even eat really basically. How can one of the most advanced places in the world not have ready access to the internet for a reasonable price when in a place like Egypt it is in every restaurant, hotel and cafe for free? We will remember the stupendous scenery and the outragoeus chips. Next stop - back to Austria!

... l'ai pas prévu de prendre le jour entier, mais j'ai dépensé toute la journée au Château de Neuchâtel et alors faisant les courses tout près. La visite et la tournée étaient libres, donc j'ai obtenu pour voir le château alors entier. Il a été incorporé le 15e siècle ! Après plusieurs heures d'exploration de château, j'étais prêt pour une coupure, donc j'ai fait des achats. Je ne planifiais pas sur l'achat n'importe quoi, mais j'ai cassé enfin quand j'ai trouvé Wodey-Suchard ...

... establishments, with well-dressed men entering and exiting these secured establishments with brief cases full of one can only imagine what, banking for the common folk is harder to come by. We did a whirl-wind tour of the old city, with Zoya pointing out all of the places she could get a "samwich", but without cash or the will to shell out $60 on lunch for one and a half people at one of the reasonably priced Geneva ...

... up to Grindelwald and then hiked up over 400m to a lookout point with the most breathtaking view of the Alps. We returned to the town but decided to save some money by walking to the next train station on the line. However, when we got there, it only had a machine to buy tickets which required 15 dollars of exact change. Seeing as how we didn't have that, we went onto the next station which was a little too well hidden so, once again, we needed to ...

... tomatoes I had with my Costoletto on our last night in Milan at the canals, and all these tomatoes have that same beautiful red color. The onions - apparently Bern has a famous Onion Festival every fall - are so shiny I think they're winking at me, and then there's cheeses. Now, looking over the selections we're confronted with in the Swiss market, I have to say we get a very fine choice of cheeses in San Francisco. In fact I think it's amazing how much ...

... across the bridge to the Cathedral. We checked out the view from the terrace behind the Cathedral before climbing to the top of the Cathedral tower. The views from the top were worth the climb! We caught the tram back to Bahnhofplatz and returned to the hotel for a rest. Went out in search of dinner at 6pm deciding to eat at an Italian restaurant on Bärenplatz before catching the tram back to Bahnhofplatz and returning to the hotel.

... more exciting. It made me realise really how good our guide was at reading the river and steering the boat...it was incredible!!! We totally lucked out with our guide!!! The other guides were good, but ours was AWESOME (except for when he tried to shove me off the boat....but I'm happy to say he was unsuccessful because I grabbed onto his life jacket fast and really tight so that if I was going in the water he was also going in!!). After the last rapid, he asked us if we wanted to surf ...