A Travel Blog (Or Something)

Days 1-2 / Bern: Our intro to Switzerland

We started our day with a bright and early train ride from Venice to Bern. Given the distance from our bed and breakfast to the train station, we were overjoyed to find out that our water taxi passes were still valid for a few more hours that morning, so our day started as any Venetian would hope: rocking on the water with 20- or 30-pound packs, looking out over the unique city of more than 100 islands as tourists started milling around.

The train ride was lovely, and the first time either of us had ever seen the Alps. We passed through rural Italian towns that blended slowly into Swiss villages, and then--seemingly out of nowhere--came the peaks of the Alps themselves. Having grown up with the low, rolling Appalachians in all their ancient glory--and even Ryan, having been raised with relatively low peaks considering the huge shelf of the Colorado Plateau on the way to northern Arizona--these were unlike anything we'd ever experienced. A low elevation (about 1,800 feet for Bern and Interlaken) paired with towering peaks (in Jungfrau's case, 13,642 feet) created such a stark contrast that we could barely comprehend the sharp turn from flat terrain to harsh, craggy mountain.

Upon arriving in Bern, we checked into the first "real" hotel of our trip: a Best Western. And as much as we've loved the intimate feel of bed and breakfasts, we couldn't have been happier to have WiFi, A/C, and a shower large enough to turn around in. In short, we were overjoyed.

We soaked in the A/C for a solid half-hour before heading back to the main train station, turning a corner, and unloading two weeks' worth of sweaty laundry in Bern's Washbar--a laundromat meets café meets bar meets live music space. My favorite part of this experience--besides ruining Ryan's and my jeans because the washers seemed to use a hint of bleach no matter your setting preference--was teaching the bartender about mimosas. She was so perplexed and so delighted to find out about this necessary addition to American life.

Side note about language in Switzerland: This country has four official languages, and English is not one of them. The majority of the country speaks either German, French, or Italian (less preferred); an extreme minority--about 1%--speaks Romansh, particularly closer to Greece and Croatia.

But even though Berne-Oberland--the region where Bern and Interlaken are located--is in the heart of German-speaking Switzerland, it's not as simple as that. Locals say "hi" in German, "please" and "thank you" in French, and "goodbye" in Italian. The language is all over the place, which has confused Ryan and I so much that we've just opted for English where possible and muttered confused "merci/danke" thank-yous when leaving.

We ended our first day under an umbrella, in the rain, outside the only 4+-star "cheap eat" on Trip Advisor: Tab Tim, a delicious Thai restaurant in the heart of downtown Bern. This was something we learned about Switzerland even quicker than its dissociative identity with languages: It's an incredibly expensive country, far more so than San Francisco or Copenhagen. A grande (medium) cold brew at Starbucks will cost you $2.93 in the U.S., including tax. The same order will cost you $7.07 in a Swiss Starbucks. A Big Mac in Switzerland is exactly $12.00 at our current exchange rate, and a $5 Aperol Spritz in Italy rings up at $24 here (taking exchange rates into account).

It has been very hard to stay on budget here.

We started our next day in Adriano's Café, a top-rated coffee destination in Bern, and immediately regretted it when we ordered an espresso and a cappuccino--maybe $6 in Italy--and had to hand over almost $15. Equally odd about this order was the realization that we were the only two people standing at the counter, sipping our espresso drinks: In Italy, you pay extra to sit down (and even more to sit outside), so everyone stands at the counter. In Switzerland, you sit down just as you would in the U.S.

We then started Rick Steves's book-guided walk through Bern's Old Town, starting at the train station and winding our way eastward. We saw the large, busy square of the Bahnhofplatz, walked along the shopping arcades of the Bärenplatz while looking into shops as diverse as Rolex to H&M, and walked around the perimeter of the Swiss National Bank and Parliament building (Bundeshaus) before touring the terraces along Parliament's east side, which looked out over the river Aare in all its pale blue glory. There were arched bridges leading to castle-like museums, rolling hills with trees and gardens, and even (in the nearby Kornhausplatz) a fountain featuring an ogre eating children. We saw the Zytglogge-Turm, a famous clock tower built in 1530 atop Bern's original entrance gate into the city (est. 1250). This clock tower features a zodiac clock--something we've seen frequently in Switzerland--as well as a puppet theatre-type clock that performs at 4 minutes to the hour.

We strolled down Kramgasse, another shopping arcade built in the same style as the other arcades in the city: An open cobbled street with covered arcades on either side, where people can shop without being interrupted by inclement weather. Bomb shelters line the street, now converted into underground shops. These covered arcades are called "pipes" in Switzerland--"rohr"--so when people go shopping, they refer to it as "rohren" (piping). At some point along this particular stroll, we passed by Einstein's old home...but were too far toward the Aare to turn back once we realized what we'd passed by. (Einstein's face is all over the city, which is actually quite entertaining.)

We peeked inside Berner Münster, Bern's official cathedral, which boasts a very plain interior compared with anything we saw in Italy. Whereas the Reformation made almost negligible changes to the Catholic capital of the world, its impact on Swiss churches is staggering. We then ducked around the back of the cathedral to the Münsterplattform, a large garden directly over the river Aare, where you have a perfect view of the eastern banks of the city.

We crossed Nydegg Bridge, which looks down on the southern side at the original Lindt chocolate factory (its murals are still intact, but the building has since been converted into apartments), to Bärenpark--which is exactly what its German name would suggest: a 15,000-square-foot park with bears. I rolled up my jeans and walked in the Aare for just long enough to lose feeling in my toes (it really is that cold, even in June), and then we hiked up the hill to Altes Tramdepot--a tourist center and brewery that looks out over the city. It was there that we had traditional Swiss cuisine, including bratwurst with sauerkraut, bread, and mustard and homemade spätzli (an egg noodle dish typical of southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and even Hungary).

We spent the sunny afternoon wandering leisurely up the eastern banks of the city to the Rosengarten, which offered such beautiful views of the entire city, nestled in the curves of the Aare River, that we forgot to even look at the roses themselves. As the sun started to set late in the evening, we wandered back to the western part of the Old City to have the next-cheapest meal we could find (besides the previous evening's Thai dinner), Bigote Verde, which was nestled in the yard of a condo building not far from Bern's train station. The entire kitchen was squeezed into a small, mobile stand that literally sat on someone's front lawn. I was relieved to be able to default to non-Spain Spanish, so ordering and paying was a breeze--and the food, although far from cheap (we walked out with a $58 tab and were still hungry), was delicious.

And in a nutshell, that was Bern. A little more than a day and a half of exploring, only a few hours of rain, and we felt like we'd seen all that the city had to offer. Our next stop: Interlaken.