Bern
Switzerland's capital city is Bern, and it sounded like an interesting place to see (let me explain why in a minute) so one Sunday morning I headed there! The city has an older historic part and then it sprawls out from there. I went to the historic area as it is always so much more fascinating! Since I went on a Sunday, I was expecting everything to be closed, but I got the shock of my life when I arrived at the train station to find hundreds and hundreds of people around the place! I followed the people as they moved off from the train station and was led to the start line of an all-female marathon race!! Thousands of women were in their running gear, lining up and waiting for the starting gun. Many streets were decorated with balloons and music was playing, it was fantastic! It also meant that many shops and cafes that would normally be closed were open! It was a pain though because it meant there were many roads that I couldn't cross as swarms of ladies ran through the streets!
Marathon day!
Parliament building
Walking around historic Bern was very cool, and in fact, Einstein was living in Bern when he discovered the e=mc2. I walked past his house! Bern is also famous for bears - the symbol of the bear has always been part of the town crest and synonymous with the town for centuries. As such, they actually keep real bears on display for the public, completely free of charge! They call them the bear pits - it used to literally be a pit in the ground where the poor bears would remain all their lives, it didn't really improve over time either - they still have deep concrete bear pits where the bears used to be kept. Things are brighter now - the bears live in a nice hillside enclosure with trees and a swimming pool and hiding places. I was actually very excited to see the bears because when I was in Alaska I had often said that I wanted to see a bald eagle, a bear and a whale - I saw whales and bald eagles but I never saw any bears, so thanks to Bern I was able to cross bears off my list!
The bear enclosure! Much better than a bear pit!
And here's the bear! looking very happy!
This is the street where Einstein lived. Look at the awesome olde worlde flags!
amazing town clocktower with moving parts
Chocolate shop!
Gruyeres
I enjoyed my morning in Bern, and once I had seen what I had wanted to see I took 2 trains and a bus to get to the tiny historic town of Gruyeres. Gruyeres is a village on a hill in the middle of farmland, it used to be a fortified stronghold, seemingly impossible to attack, and now it is a tourist mecca, famous for the cheese, the chateau, the well-preserved historic town buildings, and meringues served with double cream.
Town square, see all the old buildings - there are no cars allowed in the village, it really has retained its history
Gruyeres Chateau
What a view
Inside the chateau - 15th century layout
Actual armour from the 1500's!
Chateau garden
My favourite room
view from top turret
After touring the chateau I managed to find a cosy little cafe, patronised by locals rather than tourists. It was hidden and you had to go down some stairs to see it - and there were only three tables in the entire place. It was run by this one Swiss man who only spoke French. In my best French I ordered a hot chocolate and hot fondue, he gave me a hot chocolate and a hot dog!!! I was able to communicate to him that the order was wrong and he ended up bringing me out some cheese on bread - you cannot really call it fondue (in fact, not at all) but it was delicious and cheap and who was I to complain again?! The hot chocolate was delicious, as was the bread. After a while, the few other people in the cafe left and so it was just me, so the owner came and sat with me and with his terrible English and my terrible French we had a really cool conversation, I really appreciated the effort he went to to try and talk to me. It's moments like that which I love love love about travelling!
Hot chocolate and "hot fondue"
