All Cities Need a Bear Pit

As promised last time, I did spend the past weekend in Bern, the capital city of Switzerland. I managed at least some background reading on Bern before I left, which amounts to:

-Bern was founded in 1191, by Berchtold V of Zahringen. It is built on a peninsular area of land bordered by the river Arne.

-Bern receives its name from local legend that the Duke needed to name the city, and decided as he went out hunting that day he would name the city for the first animal he sighted. That happened to be a bear

-Bern is a UNESCO World Heritage site

-After a fire destroyed most of the city, it was rebuilt using sandstone from a nearby quarry that has a distinctive green color.

It's a bit like visiting the depressing version of OZ at first glance; everything is a drab sort of green. Of course, then you get off the bus and realize you're in one of the more fun cities to spend a weekend in.

This trip was sponsored by Tech, which requires some sense of educational merit. As such, we drove from Riva to Bern, a six hour trip, including breaks, and the memorable journey through the St. Gottard Pass. Or at least it would have been memorable to pass through the longest tunnel in Europe at 17 kilometers if the entire group hadn't been asleep after being woken far too early to get on a bus. It's worth noting that the St. Gottard Pass is the only way to cross the Alps between Northern and Southern Switzerland, and forms a geographic language barrier. The south is all Italian, but once we got through it was German everywhere.

We reached Bern about 13:00, and were sent to our hotel rooms to rest and recoup before a walking tour. It was there, in room 607 of the Bahnhof, I encountered the first television since arriving in Europe. I promptly found CNN and the music channels. Needless to say, I can away with an improved knowledge of Swiss pop music, but more on that later.

Our first walking tour took us around the highlights of Bern: main streets, the exterior of the Cathedral, the very high walls protecting Bern from attack, and finally the Einstein House. Sadly, the Einstein House is now pretty high on my list of "disappointing historical sites". Albert Einstein lived in Bern for seven years, in seven apartments, and the Einstein house (or first floor flat) is the only former resident of the physicist that the visitor can go inside of, anywhere in the world. The house really doesn't have a lot to show for itself, and one of the worst informative videos I've had the displeasure to sit through. Luckily it was a short visit.

Free time allowed me the opportunity to see some of the city on my own terms, including a gallery of Toblerone to celebrate 100 years of delicious Swiss chocolates. Unfortunately, everything was in German, with no helpful English leaflets, but i think I understood that Toblerone chocolates are delicious. Dinner and a quiet night in followed.

The second day began in the same manner: walking tour, which included several palatial exteriors, and the interior of the Cathedral. As a Reformed church, there's not a whole lot of decoration, but there was one really cool stained glass window with thirty scenes of Death carrying off victims. I have a picture somewhere, but it was stunning. Out from the church and across the bridge to find the Bear Pits- home to the city mascot. The two residents were out that day, which cause no end of thrill, especially as I had brought along Randolph the Bear for posing potential. The Bern visitor center next door had the best introductory video ever. It included the Duke's talking chair (which terrified everyone there), and ghosts of the Napoleonic wars (which made us all question who's running the city's tourism office).

A morning of education should have led into an afternoon of independent study- which promptly began with the realization that the city was crawling with police. One member of the group found a cop with some English. Good news! we were just in time to potentially see a protest group against the World Economic Forum..not being held in Bern. I sat with a few fellow students near the Parliament house hoping to see real, live protests in action. But they started late, so we contented ourselves with watching one guy get arrested and crossed the river to visit the Bern Historical Museum.

The Museum had a pretty cool Einstein exhibit, even attempting to explain the theory of relativity. More impressive was the entry stairwell walled by screens with rolling projections of Einstein and just enough mirrors to feel like I was walking through an Escher sketch. Einstein took so long that there wasn't nearly enough time for the silver collection or Romans, which was okay in the end. With more time to kill, one friend and I journeyed to the Swiss Rifle Museum to see the special exhibit on crossbows. We ended up arriving 45 minutes before closing, being the only visitors, and getting a special tour from the nice man in charge for the day. He spoke wonderful English, and took us through all three floors, explaining all the weapons, the history, the competitions, and how everything worked. Actually, it was one of my favorite museum trips. It turns out that there's an international crossbow competition, but really only Germany. France, and Switzerland show up. And there are handheld crossbows for in-home practice.
Also...recreational dueling pistols using wax bullets, similar to today's paintballs. I think I may have to bring recreational dueling back as a hobby.

After that is was the Kornhaus, a relic from Medieval times: a huge underground warehouse, designed to hold all taxes, as well as function as a market of sorts. Today it's a bar on the gallery, and a very fancy restaurant below. I stopped for a glass of wine, which has got to be one of the highlights of the trip. Really, the atmosphere was amazing.

We left the following day, pausing to visit the town of Thun, founded by the same Duke as Bern, and arrived back at the Villa to find Riva in a bit of a tizzy. Turns out January 27th is the celebration of Beato Manfredo, a local religious icon. The Chiesa di San Vitale holds his body in a glass case, and showcases him to the public for the festival. Looks pretty good for being dead since 1217.

Pretty exciting weekend, but back at the Villa for another week of study. This next weekend is Carnivale, and I should be spending mine in Bellinzona. I didn't plan well enough for Venice, though some people will be joining those festivities. Maybe Venice and a few Shakespeare cities the following weekend. Lots of planning to still be done.