Tuesday 9 September 2014

Bern

After travelling past the Cinque Terre, I believe the train went through Genoa before heading north into Switzerland. Whilst on the train I did a quick google map search to see whether we would be traveling over the Landwasser  viaduct - unfortunately not, as that is a bucket list dream since seeing a picture of it as a child.I believe it must've been sometime in the afternoon that I reached Bern. Unfortunately Switzerland is a bit of a mongrel in the sense that it doesn't use the Euro, despite being in the middle of countries that do, so I had to change some money, and estimate roughly how much I was going to spend in a day, so I didn't change too much or too little.Once I had sorted that out I went about finding my hostel, which was down a hill via cable car. I checked in, and remember I was lucky enough to score a stand alone bed (rather than a bunk). I know I then spent a bit of time sorting out Eurostar tickets from Brussels to London, and possibly also my ticket to Amsterdam for the following day, as it was starting to get dark as I went out to explore Bern.I got some dinner at a restaurant that specialised in Fondue  - apparently a national dish of Switzerland, which I kind of knew from reading Asterix comics. I ordered a fondue, and ate it, with the intention of following it up with a Raclette - which is a Swiss dish where raclette cheese is melted and scrapped off the wheel onto potatoes and gherkins. I had had this several times at Borough market in London, after my sister had introduced me to it. Unfortunately I was already full, and something stodgy like potatoes would have been a step too far.  I figured I would get the opportunity again once I got to London.The walk was nice, albeit not too overwhelming. (I believe I had a map, and had circled a few things to check out, most of which weren't memorable enough to be recalled 6 years later.) I recall at the turning point of my explorative walk there was a park which you looked down into, which contained bears - the Barengraben (the Bear Pit), which may've been the most exciting. I did pass a shop with a Swiss Army knife display, something that MacGyver-mad young me was interested in.On the way back to the hostel I found the Einstein cafe, so called, as it was the building where Einstein had lived/worked at some point. There I had a nice hot chocolate before returning to the hotel for a sleep.





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