Bern Baby Bern
It was great to be reunited with Molly and back in the land of hole-y cheese, army knives, high finance, Lindt balls, Toblerones, watches that don’t skip a beat, natural muesli and amongst other things, the Swiss Family Robinson. Everything here is so well-organised and precise. It’s quite a change from the chaos of Italy. The trains and buses are always on time. Cars always stop at zebra crossings to let you cross. Even trams give way to pedestrians. The Main Street of the old town has not one, but two town clocks, both of which are perfectly synchronised and correct to the second.
Mitch had planned to take Molly, Zoe (a uni friend of Suz’s) and a Canadian couple, up to the Swiss Alps today. I was also invited but decided that I should really spend my last day in Bern looking around and seeing what the city had to offer. Molly had already spent a couple of days looking around Bern while I was in the Italian Alps, so today we’d swap.
While he’s been living in Bern, Mitch has taken up a job as a part-time tour guide and so gave me an incredibly detailed rundown of all the must-see sights of Bern - not only where they were and how to find them, but also lots of juicy historical tidbits and stories to go with them. It felt like I was on my own little treasure hunt, as I followed Mitch’s elaborate instructions that covered the whole city, looking for one landmark and then navigating to the next. It was really fun and a great way to see the city.
All the buildings in the centre of town are the same light khaki colour, with different details and flourishes to set them apart. The Parliament building is really gorgeous and there were so many arches all over the city, I felt like I was on Playschool. Red geraniums flow out of pretty window boxes on every single building. I did wonder why the flower choice seemed so homogenous but Mitch and Suz gave us the lowdown, informing us red geraniums are actually mandatory. Though Molly spied a rogue cactus in one rebellious window-box - which incidentally, no-one else has been able to confirm - on the whole, the good citizens of Bern seem more than happy to comply, not daring to deviate, lest they face a hefty fine.
The old town is characterised by its gorgeous red rooves, with round shingles and tall hatted chimneys. I got to see Albert Einstein’s second floor flat, where he lived with his wife and son from 1903-1905; the very place he penned his old “E=MC squared” theory. He was relatively happy there, living with his relatives. Relatively speaking of course. Everything’s relative.
The 100 metre high Gothic ‘Munster’ (just a fancy name for a church) was built in 1421 and the bell alone weighs 10 ton! * It’s possible to pay a small fee to walk up to the top of the bell tower for a magnificent view of the city centre. Very keen to ascend the stairs, I lined up for a ticket. “Who are you going with?”, the ticket seller asked me.
“No-one”, I replied. “Just myself”.
“Oh well you can’t go up then, sorry”, she said.
I couldn’t figure out why on earth they’d have that rule and enquired why I’d need a buddy.
She informed me that sadly, it was to prevent suicides. I suggested I could just wait until someone else showed up to buy a ticket and see if I could tag along with them and also reassured her I was in no way suicidal, offering up phone pictures of my family to show her all I had to live for. (She must’ve thought I was a fruitloop).
There was to be no tagging along with any old stranger.
“The person you go up with has to be a genuine friend.”
It’s so sad to think they’d have to put in such safeguards but all worth it, if it saves peoples’ lives I guess. I would have loved to go up but would just have to get my magnificent city views elsewhere.
It was great to get up close and personal with the famed Bern bears, one of them even posing for my camera. They’ve been in the city since 1513 and have moved around twice, before reaching their current enclosure. Bears are the symbol of Bern, appearing on the city flag and depicted in some way or other on many city buildings. Although it seems a bit cruel that they are kept in this big concrete pit, with people gawking down on them from above all day, the new park has a tunnel leading to some green hilly terrain, including caves and the "Bear Bath" in the Aare River, if they fancy a dip. They are apparently well-looked-after and are being kept from extinction. *
A short, steep stroll uphill from the Barenpark, is a beautiful rose garden (Rosengarten); lush, green grassy parkland, complete with lily-padded pond, fountain, children’s playground, paths for walking and an incredible view over the red rooftops down to the river and the city centre beyond. I sat at a table in the Rosengarten cafe, on the edge of the hill, appreciating and taking in the view as I munched on my delicious sandwich.
One thing I was yet to find on Mitch’s Marvellous Mystery Tour, was the Kindlifresserbrunnen statue. The name is a mouthful and the statue has a mouthful…It’s a child-eating ogre! The nightmare-inducing stone statue dates back to 1545 and though theories for the reasons behind this grotesque little sculpture abound, it may have been nothing more than a mighty big incentive for disobedient children to pull their socks up.*
Everything, including public transport, is extremely well-organised in Bern. All the buses and trams are clearly marked and come almost every 5 minutes. I discovered I needed to find the no. 20 bus but couldn’t locate the no.20 bus stop. I asked a friendly looking local, who was sporting some hiking poles, looking like she’d had a big day traversing a mountain, and she went above and beyond, walking me to my bus stop and even seeing me off with a friendly wave from the footpath. So nice!
The main language of Bern is Swiss German with most people also being able to converse in French. Street signs here are mostly in German so there are a lot of derivations of the word ‘fahrt’, giving us all a giggle. Also on the funny side is the suburb of ‘Wankdorf’, complete with its own Wankdorf Stadium and Wankdorf Shopping Centre. It’s not far from where we are staying and I accidentally asked someone on the bus if it was going to “Wankerdorf”. Oops. The Starbucks restaurant had a ‘position vacant’ sign in the window that said: ”We’re looking for you!” which also provided rather an immature laugh-out-loud lost in translation moment (I’ll let you look that one up yourself).
Molly, Mitch and the gang had a brilliant day hiking the Bernese Alps and the Jungfrau region, Molly clocking up a huge 25,000 steps and well and truly wearing herself out. The views looked absolutely spectacular!
Tonight, Mitch and Suz had us over for dinner at their place with their friend Zoe and it was really lovely to catch-up. Suz is 30 weeks pregnant now and looking very radiant and cute. Next time we see them, they will be 3!
*All fun facts kindly provided by Mitch.
