Bern

Capitol.  Mitteland. 
Population 122,422

Last Sunday we planned on heading to Lucerne, but the weather looked better in Bern so we made a last minute switch.  We did a bit of reading up on Bern, mostly on the train.  We were delightfully surprised, to say the least. The old town is quaint (circa 15th century) and picture-postcard charming.  It’s approximately 6 km of arcaded stone streets (shops at the bottom and residences on top), with fountains of folk figures in the middle of the street every few blocks.  No wonder it’s a Unesco Heritage Site!  Since it was Sunday, all the shops were closed, thus, it was quiet, but still so much fun wandering around.  It was a very leisurely day.

Famous fountain of Troll eating children!

Like Basel, you can drink water from the fountains.

There is also a big fancy clock tower, similar to Prague’s.  We watched it strike 12:00, where the guy at the top gongs the bell 12 times, and in the middle, bears and people danced around.  It was somewhat anti-climactic since we stood around a while waiting, but still a true engineering feat.

There is also a bright turquoise river (Aare), the color of water you seen on posters for a tropical island, that winds its way around the city.  We had a nice walk along the river and unexpectedly ran into bears!  Ok, they weren't running wild.  Interestingly, there's a "Bären Park" adjacent to the river that houses a few brown bears.  They looked so cute and cuddly!   We learned the name Bern means the descendant of Bernard (bear), hence all the bear logos all over the city (just like Cali!) 

We ended our wonderful day with a late afternoon glass of wine at an old, opulent hotel with impressive views of both the river and mountains.  There were tons of people swimming in the river - which looked so refreshing.   Not sure how they avoid getting carried too far downstream though, the current is strong.