Day Fiftythree - Jul 13, 2012
Bern, Switzerland
Daily Didactic
We started the day by hunting down train 9 to Gurtenbahn, the station at the base of Gurten "Mountain". At 1000 feet above Bern, the mountain is really more of a foothill, but it has a funicular to the top. This sounded too fun(icular) to pass up, in spite of the fact that the top of the mountain is covered by a huge music festival this weekend. This turned out to mean two things; the car up was packed and it was free. We looked at going to the festival yesterday (as there were a couple of band we'd like to have seen) but at $170 for the two of us, we decided to catch up with those bands stateside. We had a little late breakfast at the hilltop restaurant, climbed a tall open air viewing tower, and walked as far as we could before hopping on a nearly empty funicular for the ride down the mountain. We caught the 9 train back to the center of town and stopped by the hostel to evaluate tourist options. After ruling out the few museums nearby, we decided to take it easy and just explore old town. We eventually ended up back in the land of expensive burgers to see if the bears were out in Bern's famous bear pit (the Barengraben). Actually the bear pit, which dates back to the 1440's, was deemed politically incorrect a few years back has been expanded to include a BarenPark. The BarenPark is a pretty impressive hillside enclosure, with Aare river swimming holes. If you have to be a captive bear, not a bad option. We bobbed and weaved back to the hostel and (with Brian still a little under the weather) called it an early evening and watched the evening rain fall on Bern from our window.
Today's Photos
