Thursday 24/7 Strasbourg to Bern (Au revoire, France...for now)

We went down for breakfast before checking out and making our way back to the station. It was sunny this morning and the bubble-like station was a bit nicer to look at than the first time we were there. We went to check out what the ticket situation was and found that it was all regional-type trains we were taking. This meant very empty and no reservations necessary!

We waited around for about an hour till the train left and then we were on our way to Basel, our first stop on the trip. Basel station was interesting. First off, it was huge (some sort of great big international hub) but also it was the first station we had been to where there was some sort of border crossing / passport control. Having said that, it wasn´t open, and people were able to just walk through unhindered.

Our first view of Bern came from the train as it passed over one of the bridges leading into the city. There was a spectacular view from there and we could make out a beautiful city below us and awaiting our patronage. The city looked green and brown, very much like a dream-like, storybook city. Trees filled most of what the eye could see, lining the river which was a soothing turquoise colour. The buildings looked old and very European. The spires from churches and the towers of castles made it look very nice indeed.

We got our train to Bern, and on arrival I was already elated with great expectations about the place. There was such a nice vibe coming out from the station, that we knew we might be in for a great time here. It dawned on me; Switzerland, wow. Never thought I´d make it here, but here I am. Seemed like a cool place. Also, there was a very helpful and friendly tourist info lady, giving a great impression of what we might expect from the people here.

We found out there was an Einstein museum. How damn cool is that?!

We made our way down to the hostel, an HI place, a bit out of the way (according to some). It was, I think, in a kind of higher-end suburbia, but really not too far from the old city and the tourist sights. It might though be far from the nightlife areas.

We set about on the walking tour route proposed by the tourist map we got from the info place at the station. We walked up the hill we had made our way down to the hostel, and then over to the square in front of the station. There was a cool bus stop thing there; some sort of famous architectural thing, I think.

We passed through some parks and saw that Bern is a city of large chessboards in public spaces, and people playing chess in the park, on these huge boards. How absolutely fantastic is that? I love a place where there´s some sort of thing like a chess culture, where average people come and play each other on oversized boards while onlookers smile or cringe at every move that´s made.

We stopped by the markets there and bought some Swiss cheese (whose name I can´t pronounce).

We walked down Spittelgasse and then Marktgasse, the main streets leading through the old city. It is a town of fountains, apparently. There is another fountain every 50 steps you take, and most are quite different and elaborately decorated with sculptures representing different things. Most have names, too! The bear symbolism was noticeable straight away. The emblem of Bern, it seems. There were banners on many of the buildings, and some of the statues topping the fountains had bears in various forms, and some in armour.

We passed the square in front of the parliament building, the big and fancy green-topped building we had noticed on our way down the hill. There were fountains in a grid pattern there, spraying at different intervals, and many young kiddies playing around. It was a bit creepy, having that just in front of the windows of politicians.

There was a clock tower and it had...an astronomical clock. So much for Prague being the only one of its kind ;)

We kept making our way down the street. There were lots of shops; quite a few being more high-end sort of places. Down the bottom we reached a church with a large spire, and a small bridge. The bridge gave a good view of the larger, more impressive bridge to the side of it.

At the other end was the bear pit. The bear, being the symbol of Bern, would necessitate having an actual bear there to display for the people. The original enclosure, still being used, was rather dismal, reminding me of enclosures in 1800s zoos almost. Some stupid tourists were throwing pieces of bread down into the enclosure as if it was a bird. The bear didn't even bother smelling it, and just walked away. Very sad. The good news was that they were constructing a new, very awesome enclosure for the bear (and possibly others, although we only saw one there).

We walked back over the other, bigger bridge (and took pics of the smaller bridge) and made our way to a park area in front of the big cathedral of Bern. There we opened up the wedge of swiss cheese we bought earlier on when we passed some markets. It tasted pretty good. Not the best I´ve had but pretty good nonetheless. I´m more of a bree person, myself. The smell though was absolutely terrible and soon became far too overpowering to keep eating the cheese. To make things worse, the smell had stuck to our hands, and we had to find one of the fountains in order to wash our hands off and rid ourselves of it.

We moved on to where one of the chess games was going on. We stayed and watched for a while. The two people playing were so different. One was a brown jacket-wearing professor type and the other was a frizzy hair, goatee-bearing beatnik type. I could imagine some sort of chess league or maybe a cheesy TV show. Today´s episode would match the two mortal enemies: The Professor vs The Beatnik. I thought of how there were probably regulars in certain areas and on certain boards in the city, and that they have probably become very good chess players from it.

We then made our way back to the hostel. We freshened up and then left again to try find food. We wandered for a bit before finding a sort of food hall place where we had some greasy Chinese food (well, it was more like random, indiscriminate Asian cuisine). It was good, and was exactly what we were both craving after so long of having the need to eat local cuisine.

From there we walked along a bit, trying to scope out what the nightlife was in the area around where we were staying. There wasn´t too much in the way of bars and things. I think there was meant to be other better areas for that sort of thing. So, we headed back to the hostel and called it a night.