The view from our hotel room. This was our first actual hotel during our honeymoon--the previous stays had been in bed and breakfasts, often without wifi or A/C. As you can imagine, we were delighted not just about the central location of this Best Western, but about the amenities.

Bern's Zytglogge, a famous clock tower built in 1530 atop Bern's original entrance gate into the city (est. 1250). This tower (which has also served as a guard post and prison over the centuries) features a zodiac clock—something we saw frequently in Switzerland—as well as a puppet theatre-type clock that performs at 4 minutes to the hour.

We loved the very alpine feel of the murals on the side of castle-like buildings. You can see arched walkways under these buildings, which act as shopping arcades: Historic Bern mostly comprises open cobbled streets 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).

Taken from around the back of Bern's main cathedral on what is known as the Münsterplattform, a large garden directly over the river Aare, where you have a perfect view of the eastern banks of the city.

The Bärenpark—which is exactly what its German name would suggest: a 15,000-square-foot park with bears. They were out of hibernation (this might sound obvious because it was late May, but keep in mind that we're in the Alps right now) and roaming happily around in the sun.

Taken from Nydegg Bridge, which looks down on the southern side at the original Lindt chocolate factory. if you look carefully at the bare white wall in this photo, you can see the original murals, which are still intact. The building has since been converted into apartments.

The river Aare. The water is just as cold as you'd expect in the Alps.

A view of historic Bern from Rosengarten (the rose garden), where we sat on a wall and looked out at this view for almost an hour.

The first thing we did after arriving in Bern was drag our dirty laundry (after spending a week and a half trudging through very hot, very humid Italy) to Bern's "Wash Bar," a laundromat-meets-live-music-meets-bar-and-café. We ran several loads while just hanging out at the bar and reading Rick Steves's recommendations for what to see and do around the city. Meanwhile, the bartender had no idea what a mimosa was, so after I explained the concept she disappeared for a moment and came back out with a bottle of champagne and a carton of orange juice, with this look of pure delight on her face. I'd like to think that to this day, she enjoys one of these newfound mimosas every now and then.

A bird's eye view of Bern. You can see the bright blue, unmistakable Aare river running between the trees.

This was the coolest glockenspiel, part of the Zytglogge clock tower; four minutes to every hour, it would put on a mechanical performance of little wooden puppets, which has been a staple of Bern tourism for centuries. 

Looking down one of Bern's many shopping arcades.

Bern, like the rest of Switzerland, is extremely expensive; so as drool-worthy as these townhouses are along the Aare, each one would run you well (well) over $1m.

The water was so cold that I lost feeling in my toes while posing for a few photos. Ryan stuck one hand in, laughed, and said "Nope, not doing that."

Looking out at the historic part of the city.

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