Bern, Baby, Bern
Trip Start
Sep 07, 2008
1
12
33
Trip End
Oct 10, 2008
Bern,
Bern,
Switzerland
Saturday, September 20, 2008
We have found the French people quite helpful and friendly, and very accommodating of our limited French. I have picked up a lot more of the language than I thought I would, but I still didn't feel very comfortable and made my husband order most of the meals. My other observation of the French, and one I'm sure we won't cease to see even leaving France, is that they are bloody terrible drivers. I know that sounds rich coming from a pair of Aussies that crashed their hire car on the first day, but the French drive worse than the Italians in my opinion. Especially on motorways, where they have no respect for oncoming traffic and overtake at high speed on blind corners
Bear Pits in Bern
. We had the misfortune to see what happens when this doesn't pay off, when we drove past a nasty head-on between a Mercedes and a van in Provence. Everyone was walking around at the scene, so we didn't stop, but the Mercedes was almost unrecognisable. Scary stuff.We awoke to a light sprinkling of snow on the mountains above Chamonix, which when we checked our photos from the previous day, was definitely fresh. Again we had been blessed with the best of the weather for our mountain visit yesterday, as the Aiguille du Midi was not visible this morning through the thick cloud. A last minute change to our itinerary to allow for the weather and a much shorter drive, we decided to head to Bern on the way to Lauterbrunnen instead of Zermatt. The drive over the mountain pass was just gorgeous, with the houses starting to look more Swiss and cows with huge cowbells around their necks walking beside the road. Coming down into Switzerland, we were surprised to see the number of vineyards on the terraces. We soon realised we were still in Cote du Rhone country which made more sense, but still we have never known the Swiss for their wine.
We arrived in Bern mid-morning and I decided to lead the way into the old town as I had been looking at the map in the car on the way there. Despite my usually good sense of direction, I managed to get us completely lost and way down the other end of town from where we wanted to be. I felt like a complete idiot when Matt used the compass on his watch to tell me we were walking in completely the wrong direction. Just goes to show why I am the doctor and he is the tour guide!!!
Eventually we found the River Aare and followed it into the old town
Bernie the Bernese Bear
. The old town of Bern lies on a tongue of land surrounded on both sides by the River Aare, which is a gorgeous green colour and extremely fast flowing. The houses started to get older the further we walked and eventually we found ourselves crossing the river to the famous bear pits of Bern. The reason for the bears is that the guy that originally founded Bern in 1191, named it after the bear that he killed there. The bear is still the mascot of the city, and entire canton of Bern, and there are flags everywhere featuring the bear. On the other side of the river from the old town are bear pits, which are quite horrible concrete enclosures where bears are kept purely for tourist viewing. I stood next to a German couple who were speaking to the bear and getting him to clap his front paws together to earn a treat. He did this so many times and they fed him a whole handful of fruit throughout the process. Part of you sees the enclosure and thinks what an inhumane way to keep such a majestic animal locked up, but then part of me was so enamoured by the intelligent behaviour of the bear. They are currently in the process of building new enclosures for the bears, so I can only hope the next ones are a little bit more luxurious for them.
We became more and more fond of Bern as we strolled through the old town, along the cobbled streets. They have so many shops that are below street level in what must have been old cellars. The magnificent Gothic cathedral Munster was a bit disappointing as the outside was partly obscured by scaffolding, and the inside was closed for some religious festival finishing today. We can't complain as we have been pretty lucky so far with our sightseeing and had even managed to miss the rain that had been falling most of the way from Chamonix to Bern
Old Town of Bern
. We lunched overlooking the river and spent a little longer wandering the cobbled streets marvelling at what a cute little city Bern is. Definitely worth a look if you love old medieval towns as I do. The Lonely Planet tells you to look for the Ogre fountain, which is a fountain of an ogre putting small children in his mouth to eat them. It sounded cool, kind of like an evil version of Shrek, however I must say it was a little disappointing as it is one of the smallest fountains I have ever seen. We would have walked right past it except for the group of Japanese tourists clicking away on their cameras. The next drive was one that I had been looking forward to the most in the whole trip. We drove past Interlaken and down into the Lauterbrunnen Valley. Unfortunately there was a lot of mist obscuring the tops of the mountains, but it was still a spectacular drive. The Lauterbrunnen Valley is like something out of a fairytale. Apparently it was the inspiration for Tolkien's Rivendell and I can see why. We are staying at a little chalet owned by the Hotel Oberland, on the main street of town. It is very cute and very Swiss. Our room has a balcony with views out over the Valley and to the JungFrau. Spectacular!! We barely had time to dump our bags in the room and we were off exploring the town. Matt has been here many times, but still hasn't had a chance to see much of the Valley outside of town
Lame Ogre Fountain
. We walked up to the Staubbach waterfall just outside of town and got very wet climbing up to the path that takes you under the falls. The heavy rain we had today made the falls flow so fast that the spray was quite impressive. We continued our walk further down the Valley from Lauterbrunnen towards Stechelberg, and lost track of time wandering through paddocks staring at cows. We meandered home along the little river that runs through town, amazed at what an incredible part of the world we were staying in.Dinner was the much anticipated Rosti at Hotel Oberland. Matt had the Oberland Rosti with ham, cheese and a fried egg on top. I still can't do anymore cheese and ham yet, after our time in France, so I opted for the rosti with chicken curry. It was fantastic and went down well with a few beers.
