Gail slept in late, catching up, while I sat in the breakfast room drinking coffee and reading. This place is like a hostel, the rooms on our floor share a bathroom, and the breakfast is self serve, open basically all morning. The advantages are first, the cost is about $100CHF a night in a city of $200 rooms, and second, it really caters to the European travelers who travel primarily like this. In an hour of reading I heard not one word of English.
The train station in Bern is a perfect size, not so big to be overwhelming, large enough to have a staffed and uncrowded ticket office. I seized this opportunity to buy the rest of our train tickets through Switzerland, picking up train schedules and information. The tickets, say from Interlaken to Luzern, are good for the route, and can be used any time on a particular day. So they are not train specific. We can go at any time, any route using any connections. Nice.
I was advised by one book to consider a Swiss Pass, for several hundred francs you travel as much as you want in a given time period. A website suggested the half fare pass, about $120CHF for half price tickets for a month. At home I did a rough calculation of the costs using the Swiss Rail web site, and the passes just didn't seem to add up for this trip. Kind of like how a Eurail pass doesn't really make sense for most people, unless you are on a one or two week, blow and go, major cities tour. Really, point to point tickets are the cheapest.
Well, I asked the Swiss Rail agent and we quickly totaled up the ticket costs, and sure enough, the pass idea didn't work out. If we were a full month in country, moving by train every two to three days, then yes, the pass would be better. My advice to you would be to not get suckered into buying a pass off a website in the US, get to Switzerland and talk to a rail representative in person once you are here.
Did you know: Something interesting about the Swiss Government, that I think would eliminate a lot of the political tension in the US: they have a split government like we do (legislative, judicial, executive) but they have seven people who serve as president, and decide by consensus. This keeps any one group from seizing power, making all equally to blame. Clever people, these Swiss.
Did you know: the entire city of Bern is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
This morning (Sunday) the church bells throughout Bern did the call to worship, one after another, starting at 9:00. It was a half hour, unbroken concert of bells; high bells, thunderous bells, far away and close bells, of all ranges and sizes, just one church after another. This, to me, is one of those defining touchstones of Europe that I missed so much in the UK. When they ring the bells in these old cathedrals, it is like no other sound; I stood out on our balcony just soaking it in. Later in the day, around twelve, the bells went nuts again, only this time we were in the center of town, so it was a full Dolby-Digital, surround sound extravaganza.
We wasted a lot of time today staring at things, walking slowly in the shaded porticoes, sitting at the Altes Tramdepot Bier Garten drinking weißbier and eating a bretzel mit Suiße mustard, then sitting along the river with our feet in the water.
Did you know: the houses on the cliffs of the original town, all lined up in a row, five to seven stories tall with red tile roofs, are various shades of white to grey, not multicolored like Ireland. It is somehow restful on the eyes.
We saw the European Brown Bears in the bear pit at the end of town, the symbol of Bern. I mean the bears are the symbol of Bern; being trapped in the pit is the symbol of... humanity, perhaps?
Did you know: Einstein thought up his most brilliant thoughts right here in peaceful Bern, while he clerked at the patent office and drank beer at night with his buddies. This proves that beer is good for the brain, and a nice job in a peaceful place can be productive. See? It's all relative!
The Swiss are known for their precision time pieces; I really like those Breitling watches (but they would look stupid on me. Still, lots of cool dials and stuff...) and today I saw two watches that just blew me away. One watch face was filled with a square jumble of letters, the letters lit up in red to spell out the time, in German, French or English. (see the link below) The other had this face with all the relevant times on the left and bottom. Like a chart, drawing a line from the hour and an intersecting line from the minutes, a growing rectangle was formed. Cool.
Around five we thought about heading to our room to sit on the patio and drink a glass of wine. Around five-oh-one our minds were made up by a huge crack of thunder, and at five-oh-two we were dodging heavy fat raindrops. C'est la vie ... uh, I mean, "so ist das leben," and so we enjoyed a cooling breeze, and afternoon wine and appetizer hour on our little patio, observing the goings-on in the neighborhood. After the rains stopped we headed out to dinner at a small cafe just up the street from us. s we arrived the skies opened again, harder this time; but we were well back on the patio and enjoyed watching the storm as we ate.
Did you know: Today's blog entry is dedicated to my teaching partner, Kathy. OK. You too, Steve old buddy.