Friday morning at 7:00am Chris got home from his 4 day Radiology conference in San Francisco. At the same time, Amy and Chris Silva were landing in Zurich, Switzerland. I had everyone pretty much packed and ready to go but it still took us an hour or two to pack the van and grab last minute things before we were on the road. Chris drove with Katie, Emily, Megan, Luke and Matthew in the van and I followed with Ryan in the Audi. Ryan and I had great talks about all things financial… credit cards, house payment, long term savings, interest, retirement. He was so fascinated about everything and kept asking more and more questions that easily filled our three hour drive to Bern. He is great to talk to. By the end he was saying, “Mom, I really think I should be putting more into my long term savings.” It was really fun. We parked at the main train station in Bern, which ended up being a huge mistake since it cost 28 Swiss Francs PER CAR. One of many clues that Switzerland was going to be EXPENSIVE!
Amy and Chris grabbed the train from Zurich to Bern and beat us there by a couple hours so when we finally met up with them they almost had to tour the entire city twice. It was so fun to see them and after a quick reunion we got straight to work with an afternoon of great sight-seeing.
The Heiliggeistkirche (Holy Ghost Church) and the Bahnhofplatz (main train station hub)…
Bern is the capitol of Switzerland so it definitely had a big city feel to it. Still, I was charmed by the flowers everywhere, the quaint architecture, so many arches and great views of distant alps. Still very European but with noticeable differences from Germany.
We walked down the street from the main train station to Barenlplatz. Below left: the Prison Tower was once part of the city wall in 1256. Renovated from 1641 to 1644 the tower served as a prison until 1897. It’s too small to see in the picture but the hand on the clock is really a hand. No minute hand though… rounding to the closest hour was good enough back then. We looked at the clock and said, “It’s two-ish.”
Below right: the Dutch Tower. Swiss soldiers were famous mercenaries who fought all over Europe. Returning from a battle in the Netherlands, the soldiers brought back the habit of smoking. But smoking was forbidden within the city walls of Bern, so they hid in this tower to smoke secretly.
We walked past a daily market filled with flowers, a sand volleyball game set up right in front of the Parliament building, and through these arches to the Terraces.
We had a great view of the Aare River and even the peaks of the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau way way in the distance.
Luke afraid he’s going to fall off the bear…
From the Kirchenfeld Bridge we could see more of the Aare River, the Parliament building and the Bern Cathedral (with beautiful scaffolding all around it.)
Bern has 11 historic fountains thorough the city. These colorful 16th century fountains are Bern’s trademark.
This one is of an ogre (chindlifresser “child-eater”) This one had an impact on Luke. The next day Luke was talking about “the ogre that ate the baby’s bum” and that “Matthew should stay away from that ogre so he doesn’t eat his bum.”
The streets of Bern had so many cool arches. “Bern has wide streets and not many squares. In the Middle Ages, craftsmen exhibited their goods on the sidewalks under simple roofs. Eventually, these were formalized, buildings were expanded, and arcades evolved. Most shops are underneath the arcades but some were in cellars, marked by old-time hatches, which were originally used for storing potatoes, coal and wine.” I didn’t get a picture of the cellars but they were cool and so unique.
This is the part of Bern’s famous clock tower… part of the original wall marking the first gate to the city in 1250. (You can see the whole tower in Megan’s sasha picture.) “The clock, which dates back to 1530, performs four minutes before each hour. The happy jester comes to life, Father Time turns his hourglass, the rooster crows (in German, that’s “kee-kee-ree-kee” rather than “cock-a-doodle-doo”) and the golden man on top hammers the bell. You can also determine the zodiac, today’s date and the stage of the moon.” We tried to use the German rooster crowing sound throughout the rest of our trip. :)
The kids and cute Amy piled into a blue bathtub/couch…
At another of Bern’s famous fountains we stopped to take a break and listen to Chris read about the Berlin Cathedral right in front of us.
The Bern Cathedral was cool. I especially liked the ceiling and how the end of each bench was carved differently.
Bern’s 15th-century ‘Munster’ is capped with a 330-foot-tall tower, the highest in Switzerland. We paid our Swiss Francs and climbed the 344 steps to the top for gorgeous views of the city. I just love a good tower climb!
After the Cathedral we continued down Junkerngasse to the Nydegg Bridge. The Aare river is amazingly clean. Locals jump into the river (we saw several jump from the lower bridge there) and just float with the swift river current until they get to Marzilibad where several poles are placed to help people exit the river. On this really hot day, the river looked quite enticing.
Across the bridge was the BarenPark (Bear Park). The symbol of Bern is the bear. Seriously, what’s up with all the bears lately? This bear is either Finn from Finland or Bjork from Demark. And there’s my Emily girl. Now that we were at the end of town we opted to take a bus all the way back to the train station. We paid our hefty parking fee and were on our way. A great beginning to our ‘all over the place’ Switzerland tour!
