Left Lausanne in the late morning for the short drive to Bern. Stayed in a Holiday Inn that is part of a large shopping center on the outskirts of town. Nice shopping center. Had a Ferrari dealership in it.

I realized a nice thing about Switzerland today – they have lots of coins. Why is that nice, you ask? Because it helps trick the brain into thinking things are cheaper than they really are. Today for example I paid for parking and was able to toss out four big shiny coins. Felt like I was paying with four quarters. What a bargain, parking all day for a buck! The reality is each of those shiny coins is worth 6 bucks and the parking was thus 24 dollars. But, I walked away feeling like it was a buck and a bargain. You have to do that a LOT here or you’ll go crazy adding up what all this costs. Bought Anneka a bottle of water at McDonalds last night, simply out of convenience. It was 4 dollars. I said, “Drink it slowly”.

Got to the hotel too early to check in so we opted to go exploring in Murten and Avenches. This area is literally the dividing line between French Switzerland and German Switzerland. In Murten it’s primarily all German spoken there and the signage is all in German. Avenches is 4 Km away and they primarily speak French there and the signage is all in French.

Murten was a great place to pass away some time and just leisurely enjoy the little town. It is one that has a largely intact section of its medieval protective wall which can be climbed for a great walk and a stellar view. Little miss Sophie discovered quite by accident how soft the sandstone walls are and so while up on the ramparts she grabbed a stone and decided to , “draw her fingers”. So, she’s tracing her little hand in the sandstone faster than I could stop her.


Little vandal…



From Murten we drove the couple kilometers on to Avenches which is a tiny town but that was once the Roman capital of Helvetia. Thus it was inhabited by 20,000 some odd Romans and I’m sure some not so odd ones too. Its arena is third in size to the coliseum in Rome and the arena in Nimes. They have prominent placards throughout the village that use of a metal detector is forbidden without it being registered. I guess there’s so much Roman junk lying around that to keep a hold of all of it they have people register their metal detectors.







They scavenged building materials for centuries from the Roman ruins to build other buildings in Avenches. This is a chunk of sculpted edifice-turned-bench. Crazy.



We stopped at a neat little park for Sophie to have some play time and while there we struck up a conversation with a father who’d brought his little 2 year old boy there to play. It was a fantastic opportunity to talk about government, the weather, taxes, healthcare and all sorts of things with someone that essentially hales from what could be argued as the “most well off” country in the world right now. He actually invited us over for dinner and while I very much wanted to go, I know that things like that make Anneka a bit uncomfortable, so we opted out. But it would have been a fascinating conversation to have had.

Eventually we made it to the hotel near Bern and checked in and went to bed. Soph is for all practical intents and purposes over her jet lag and is back to her old wake-up-at-11, go-to-bed-at-midnight routine. But, it’s working out for us. We’re having a great time.

Woke up today and headed into Bern proper. Essentially we parked at one end of the center of town and did what proved to be a daylong walking tour using our Rick Steve’s guide book. I took Sophie up 300+ steps to the top of the Bern Cathedral. Big mistake. I had to carry her all the way up and then all the way down. Now she’s only 30 pounds but combine that with my mental anguish at walking up spiral staircases hundreds of feet up in the air with large, breezy ornate openings in them that are perfectly “Sophie shaped” and sized for her to plop out of and her 30 pounds of weight meets my extraordinary fear of losing her combined with boa-constrictor like tension in my muscles and it was an arduous journey up and down.

We just strolled and played most of the day. Soph and I played cheese on one of those oversized outdoor chess sets.



(She just moved guys around randomly, well, not so randomly. She felt bad for some guys so she was moving them into the shade) I doubt that is a grand masters tactic, but it was fun for us.



Bern historic clock. I don't know how medeival folks made sense of these.



Sophie getting up close and personal with the famous brown bears of Bern












We took her to see a monument in Bern, their Brown Bears. They’ve had Brown Bears locked up in a cement pit for centuries. But recently the Bernese grew hearts and decided to build them posh, zoo-like digs near the river. Now they’re happy as fat kids in a candy store. One of them saddled up to where we were standing and for a moment it was the closest I’ve even been to a bear in my live. It was like 2 feet away separated by a decent fence and like an inch of glass. It was neat.

Bern is simply a wonderful and characteristic city full of a lot of historical charm. I walked by Albert Einstein’s apartment from which his most productive theoretical thinking came out of. It was simply odd to think he strolled these arcaded streets and pondered the universe and its function. I strolled the same streets and had singing contests with Soph to determine who could sing their abc’s the loudest.

Bern was just a short day trip. Then it’s on to Interlaken and the Alps.
More later!
Chris