Day 7: Basel & Bern

After a rough night of sleep in a hot hotel room in Basel, we opted for some quick, morning site-seeing and then to move on to Bern.

It was a long, hot night and Owen slept in.

Our morning site-seeing in Basel was enjoyable. The buildings reflect the centuries of history and a tradition of attention to detail on exteriors. A few illustrations:

While exhibiting traditional architecture, Basel had quite a bit of modern public art. Garrett enjoyed this fountain.

The main cathedral in Basel has a long history. We could not get in, but could hear a beautiful organ playing inside.
Basel Cathedral

In the main shopping area, Swiss watches were on display. The boys seemed interested in a Rolex...

After the morning tour of Basel, we were able to catch a train to Bern with ease. Compared with yesterday's scary public transit experience, today was easy. The urban bus and tram system is very straightforward once you get the hang of things, and the national rail system is even better. We were able to get to the platform for the noon train to Bern within five minutes of entering the station. The train through the countryside was out of a storybook.

After a quick 1 hour train trip, we were in Bern. This is the first town we've visited without prior hotel plans. At the train station, we encountered helpful travel center staff and reserved a hotel room. Being the high season, there were not many options, but we found a room with four beds and breakfast included for a reasonable rate (Hotel Alpenblick, 5 minute tram from city center).

Bern is the national capital of Switzerland. It is a medieval city with remnants of city walls. The city center is a peninsula surrounded by a beautiful blue river, the Aare, coming out of the Alps.

This picture does not capture the beauty of Bern.A German from Frankfurt on a motorcycle trip to Spain was nice enough to take this picture and strike up a long conversation.

Not only is it pretty, the river is a part of daily entertainment. Residents of Bern float down the Aare river on hot days. Today was no exception. The Alps water was cold, but the float was fun.

After swimming, we took the funicular from the river valley up to the main city center.

The funicular in Bern.

Long ago, the Bern town elders felt the light green stone buildings were too uniform and boring, so they started a tradition of building colorful statues to spice things up and demonstrate the town's prosperity. Here are a few:

Bagpiper

No idea.

A particularly famous statue is the ogre with a handful of children and one in its mouth.

Child-eating ogre.

Garrett seemed disturbed by this.

This is the national parliament building. It is understated and reflects the Swiss approach to governance. Instead of electing a president, the Swiss have a 7-member governing council of political party representatives who each rotate in a one-year presidency so that no single party becomes dominant. (for the government nerds reading this)

The square in front of the Parliament building has a public fountain. This fountain confirms the universal truth about male children. If you shoot vertical jets of water from the ground, each and every boy will stand over it to see how long he can handle direct hits to the crotch. Without fail.

Garrett playing outside of Parliament.

At dinner, we met a couple from Bern. The man is a flight attendant for Swiss Air. He speaks many, many languages. Conversational English, German and French is a prerequisite for the job. He gave us several ideas for tomorrow, and even suggested a tennis club where the boys may get on clay. We'll see.

After dinner, we saw one of the famous landmarks of Bern. A clock tower from the 1500's that displays not only the time, but also the astrological symbol and the relative positions of the sun, earth and moon. Because the clock tower has a moving jester and circling bears, it attracts a lot of attention. We ran over at 6 before the hour, the scheduled time, and saw the display. The guide books overstate its appeal.
Bern Clock Tower

All in all, it was an amazing day of touring two Swiss cities. We look forward to tomorrow.