Saturday July 13th - Cool to Very Warm and sunny all day - again, 18°C to 27ºC
Bonnie and Luca chat on Face Time
Parliament House Bern
On the Bridge over the Aare River
Clock Tower built 1530
Kramgasse Street - Grocer's Alley
Einstein lived in this house in Bern
World heritage listed Kramgasse St
Countryside Switzerland
Bears in the park - symbol of Bern
We've slept in for the first time in a month - til 8am and have several cups of tea, time to blog and have breakfast with Luca and Seraina at 11.30am. Seraina is going to Zurich to go to a sick friend's 30th birthday party and Luca gives us a great tour of Bern. Then we have a great Weber Bar B Q at the apartment.
Sleeping in til 8am is good - the apartment is very quiet and after a late night and no cycling today, it's a relaxing start to the day. Several cups of tea and we're ready to Face Time Bonnie so that Luca can participate - he hasn't seen Bonnie for more than 10 years. We all talk for almost an hour before a casual breakfast with coffee - the coffee machine is from Migros - one of the major supermarkets in Switzerland. By 1.30 we say good bye to Seraina and we're out the door to do a tour of Bern with Luca as tour guide.
First stop is the Bern SBB train office where we spend almost and hour trying to sort out our train tickets for Grenoble. We've decided to leave on Monday and spend to morrow going to Interlaken just 45 minutes south by train. The problem with our train tickets to Grenoble is not only that the Chambery to Grenoble line is closed and the replacement bus doesn't take bikes, but the alternate route I'd picked out via Lyon doesn't have room for 2 more bikes so now we need to go via Basel and take a TGV - a really fast train - to Lyon, but after that there's no guarantee we'll get our bikes on the next train to Grenoble - sort it out in France we are told. So we're looking forward to the train trip on Monday to Grenoble - NOT. But we did manage to book 3 tickets return to Interlaken tomorrow, Sunday, and we are looking forward to that.
From the station, it's down the Kramgasse, a street full of old shops that's now listed by UNESCO as World Heritage. The Kramgasse ("Grocers Alley") is one of the principal streets in the Old City of Bern, the medieval city center of Bern, Switzerland. It was the center of urban life in Bern until the 19th century. Today, it is a popular shopping street. Its length, slight curve and long line of Baroque façades combine to produce Bern's most impressive streetscape.
We move to where a few hundred people are watching the huge ornate astronomical clock. The Clock Tower (Zytglogge) built in 1530, was Bern's first western city gate (1191 - 1256) and is now one of Bern's most important sights. At 3pm, right on queue, the ornate figures spring into action and a moving figure hammers out 3 chimes. Then everyone disperses.
It's a long walk down the 350m street and then across to the bears, the symbol of Bern, so called becaus the bear was the first animal caught after the founding of the city in 1224 by the Duke Berthold V of Zähringen. There's thousands of tourists, particularly Asians, as we watch the bears in their pound near the river Aare, where there's som frigid tourists floating downstream in the 15ºC water.
Up to the Rosengarten, where theres fabulous views of the city, and back to Luca's favourite coffee shop before going to the railway station where we shop for the next two days - picnic at Interlaken and picnic on the TGV to Lyon. The two supermarkets we visit are Coop and Migros, and we walk back loaded with food after walking about 5 to 6k around town - makes a pleasant change from cycling - our first day off in more than two weeks.
Home to a Bar B Q of Pork Fillet and Grilled Vegetables.
View from the Rosengarten
Admiring view from Rosengarten
Playing tourists in Bern
Looking for a Swatch