Bern, Bears and Statues on Buildings

It's Sunday in Switzerland and the whole place is closed except for the fast food outlets and the railway station. We have one day left on our Swiss travel pass, and all the good advice said "Go to Bern"...so we did.

Bern is famous for bears. These animals feature in the history of the town, and in fact there are bears featured on much of the statuary around the city, and of course the city fathers still think it's a good idea to keep several real live bears locked up in a "sanctuary" so all the visitors to the town can come and stare at them as they walk around in their concrete enclosure.

The other thing most notable about the city of Bern is the vast array of statues that adorn the buildings in the old town. Most of them have historical significance, some are associated with ancient guilds and trade crafts, and some aren't easily appreciated because of what they depict.

Then there are the very beautiful wrought iron signs that are mostly associated with hotels and guesthouses...

...and finally there are more of the beautiful paintings on the façades of the buildings, just like we have seen in Lucerne.

So, the advice turned out to be worthwhile, with the only down side being that all the shops were also closed in Bern.

Tomorrow we begin the journey home.

Over and out.

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The Tail End

Train travel through Switzerland is simply joyful, with every window frame a postcard of deep green rolling hills giving way to rugged mountains dusted with snow at their peaks, rushing rivers and a smattering of cute little houses - you expect at any moment to see a yodelling trio or a man in lederhosen playing a long curved alpenhorn. The trains leave on time, they are clean and the seats are comfortably upholstered. What's not to like?

Lucerne is a very pretty town and is our last stop on this trip. We're glad to be here, but also excited about going home again in a few days. The whole suitcase thing and the up-and-down stairs thing and the hotel room thing and the looking for a place to eat dinner thing has been wearying. Last year's trip where we stayed one month in each location and in apartments where we could self-cater, was much easier by far.

Nevertheless I don't want to give the impression that we're not having a brilliant time, because we are; the countries we've visited have been glorious, each one for different reasons - Denmark, Norway, Belgium and Switzerland.

We arrived in Lucerne yesterday and as the weather was perfect, we took the opportunity to make a boat trip on Lake Lucerne. This gave us the opportunity to see the beautiful surroundings of this town from the water.

Upon returning we walked to the Old Town across the famous Chapel Bridge, a covered wooden bridge flanked on each side by a magnificent floral display.

At nighttime this bridge is breathtakingly beautiful because of the reflected illumination. Similarly, lighting makes a dramatic difference to other public buildings.

Today we took an organised walking tour, which was interesting in that it gave us an insight into Switzerland's (and particularly Lucerne's) history. We haven't visited a lot of cathedrals and churches on this trip, but one thing we have noticed in Europe is that so many stunning interiors of religious buildings would not be discovered if you judged a book by its cover and assumed the inside was going to be much the same as the outside (i.e.not particularly interesting). This turned out to be true of the Jesuit Church here, which is externally not even of passing interest. Our tour guide led us inside however, and we gasped.

Many of the buildings have beautiful painted façades and decorative features which reflect events in the town's history and related mythology. We've had fun discovering all the different artwork over the past 24 hours.

Tomorrow we will visit the open air fruit and vegetable market, the cheese fair and the flea market in the morning, before moving on to more cultural sites. Hopefully there will be an opportunity for one last blog post with photos.

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The Glacier Express

It is said that the Glacier Express is the slowest express train in the world, and whilst our journey on this legendary train was only from Visp to Chur, a total time of four and a half hours, we were delighted that it took so long to cover the distance.

Good things start to happen the minute the train leaves the station. A linen table cloth and cutlery are laid out and your lunch order is confirmed, drink orders are taken, and the mountain scenery rolls past the panoramic windows of your carriage.

An interesting feature of the journey is the audio commentary provided all along the route via the complimentary earphones. Not only do you come away from the trip full of new images of fabulous Swiss mountain scenery, you actually get to learn something about the countryside that you are travelling through.

All the food served on the train is prepared by the kitchen staff in the dining carriage, and it is served to you at your table, and, they even come back after a respectful period of time and offer seconds to any passengers with room for more. Needless to say two hands went up on our side of the table when the question was asked of us.

Whilst we did see some snow on the higher peaks today, I am sure that this journey could only be enhanced by a carpet of snow throughout the valleys. We had a fair bit of rain and low cloud to contend with, but that did not detract in any way from what was a great experience.

We eventually arrived at Chur and changed from speaking French to German (both languages are second nature to me, so I had no problem...) and quickly found our hotel and the location of the nearest food and beverage establishment.

Chur is a pretty little town of about 30,000 people and sits in a valley with mountains to the left and mountains to the right. Again the rain has limited our activity a little, so we decided to have morning tea, lunch and a nana-nap to pass the time...

Next stop Lucerne.

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So, here we are in Switzerland.

Switzerland is all about lush green valleys with quaint little houses dotted all over the hillside, and cows with bells, and cuckoo clocks, chocolates and trains that run on time. I am pleased to say that it is all those things, but it is also about big cities, freeways, peak hour traffic and busy streets.

But I digress. Getting to Lausanne from Bruges last Friday was a full day of train travel, firstly to Brussels, a change of train to Paris, and then another train to Lausanne. As it happened, the last of those trains was actually late due to some maintenance work along the way, and the French rail company offered everybody on board the train compensation in the form of travel credits. A novel idea that could send rail operators in Oz broke. The other interesting travel fact is that hotels in Lausanne are required to charge a room tax to all overnight guests, but, in return you get free travel on the entire metro transport network for the duration of your stay in the city. Another novel idea for travel operators in Oz.

The old town in Lausanne becomes a huge street market on Saturdays with lots to see and do, outdoor cafes, street musicians, jugglers and snake charmers (I made up that last part). We walked, we ate, we visited the compulsory cathedral, we rode around on the free transport, we climbed wooden towers for spectacular views (except that the cloud cover has been so heavy you couldn't see a thing) and then we had Belgian beer and tapas because we had some spare capacity in our bellies.

Lausanne street market - Saturday morning

Nougat stall at Lausanne street market

Palace of Justice - Lausanne

Sauvabelin Tower - Lausanne

Couple of local friends

Sunday was a rail journey to Montreux, which is just up the road, and the reason we went on the train was because it was pouring buckets of rain. Visitors to this lakeside mecca for the rich and famous soon discover that not much happens on a Sunday, and especially in the rain. We did manage a visit to Chateau Chillon before embarking on another train ride to an even more expensive enclave for rich folks at Gstaad, where everything was still closed, but we could see from the price stickers in the shop windows that we were saving more money as a consequence. Lunch in a quaint little Swiss restaurant was ultimately the best way to enrich the local economy, and we were fortunate enough to have selected the favourite restaurant of a famous movie director now living in Switzerland because he can't go home.

Fancy-shmancy hotel in Montreux - we didn't stay here!

Castle of Chillon - Montreux

Underground at Castle of Chillon

Gstaad - Sunday off-season

After hob-nobbing with the rich and famous at Gstaad, we took the train back to our humble abode in Lausanne - the Hotel Aulac - on the shores of beautiful Lake Geneva.

Hotel Aulac - Lausanne

Our next post will be about The Glacier Express experience, and then one or two from Lucerne, after which it's home to toast and vegemite and a decent cup of tea and coffee.

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Belgium Round-Up

We're in Lausanne (Switzerland) now, on the bank of magnificent Lake Geneva, but it has been some time since our last confession post so I thought I'd better do a quick précis of our Belgium adventure before moving on to talk about Lausanne.

Aside from our hot air balloon trip, we filled the time very easily in Bruges as the weather was mostly kind to us and we could get out and about to do whatever we pleased. On the day we arrived there was a massive food festival going on in the main city square. Michelin chefs were under small separate marquees, showing how clever they were by preparing fresh little dishes on the spot which you could buy using a tear-off ticket system. We bought a bunch of tickets and sampled about five tapas-style plates each, sitting down with a great Belgian beer each and chatting with the locals about how great Bruges is and how lucky they are to live there (they know).

Crepe filled with goat's cheese

Have I mentioned already that Belgian waffles are amaaaazing? I don't think I've talked about them enough, so while on the subject of food, here's another waffle photo - this one was from Brussels and if you are ever in that part of the world you have to go to Dandoy for waffles.

OK, so back to Bruges . . . we went on a great little river boat trip. That's a good thing to do in Bruges and indeed in any city you visit, because if they are nice they're even more attractive from the water and if they're not particularly fabulous, they always look a lot better seen from a boat. Bruges happens to be gorgeous from every angle - air, land and water.

I've mentioned in a previous post about yarn bombing in Copenhagen - we found it as social commentary in Bruges too. In the photo below the translated sign reads, "I work for more women in politics".

We climbed the belfry in Bruges, just as the guys do In Bruges. It was arduous but had to be done, for the sake of respecting the movie and with regard to the amount of chocolate, beer, waffles and fries we have consumed since arriving in Belgium. If truth be told, we should have climbed the belfry several times (two steps at a time...) given what we have put away.

A tour of the Halve Maan brewery in Bruges was unexpectedly interesting and worth doing. We've been drinking the local Zot beer and it was very good - the brewery is family-owned and the guided tour takes you through the process of creating the various beers produced there, from traditional methods through to the incorporation of new technology. A great rooftop visit of the brewery also allows you to view Bruges from another angle and affords a good photo opportunity.

We made a day trip to Ghent, from Bruges. The altarpiece in the church there is very famous, having been painted (mostly) by Jan Van Eyck. It's special because it's made up of several hinged panels, which is unusual, and the artwork is very beautiful. Sadly, some of the panels are currently elsewhere being restored, so we didn't see the full altarpiece. Ghent is a much larger town than I had thought, and worth a visit.

OK, last but not least and in the interests of full disclosure, I confess that I ate ALL of the mussels in the photo below. The waiter told me (afterwards) that there are approximately 70 mussels per serve, but I can't verify that - I was too busy scoffing them down to count. I've never eaten mussels like these - at home they taste of seafood and can be a bit chewy, but in Bruges they were soft and pillowy and tasted of the white wine and vegetables they were steamed with and they didn't have any aroma of seafood whatsoever. We've been watching people eating these "buckets" of mussels throughout our time in Brussels, then in Bruges, and I really wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Now I know. They really were sensational.

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