Day 18: Bern – Thun

Today was a very busy day. We took the train to Thun and visited the town for half a day, enjoyed the Botanical Garden of the University of Bern, and viewed the permanent collection of the Bern Kunstmuseum.

We began our day around 7.15, when the other people staying on our floor decided to get up and use a hair dryer. At 7.25, a nearby clock tower decided to begin ringing it’s bells, and didn’t stop until 7.30. By this point, there was no way we were going to sleep any longer, so we decided to get up. We had a usual breakfast (yogurt and cereal), and decided what to do for the day.

By 9 o’clock, we had hit the Coop to purchase some pears to go with our lunch (leftover bread, and some jam and peanut butter that was left in the free food section of the kitchen), and were at the Bahnhof looking for our train. We found our what platform would take us to Thun, headed over, and hopped on the train pretty much immediately.

The ride to Thun was about 20 minutes, and gave us a lovely view of the mountains. When we arrived, we needed to waste some time before the castle would open at 10 o’clock, so we wandered the streets a bit. We came across a street that had stores both at street level, and at the level of a walkway that was overtop the street level stores. It was a bit strange. I was going to include a picture, but Jeff says that it was much too blurry because he was using the wrong mode on the camera. :(

By 10 o’clock, we had made our way up to the castle. It was quite the hike up, and we needed to take a lot of stairs to get there. When we finally got into the castle, we needed to go up even more stairs just to get inside. But it was worth it when we got to the top of the castle and looked out from one of the towers; the view was very impressive! Close up of the mountains:

View overlooking Thun:

Bear got in on one of the shots:

The interior of the attic was full of wooden beams. We took a picture looking straight up, and used a slow shutter speed so you can see it! 

We made our way through the museum that was a part of the castle. The castle has been used as a museum since 1888, and was a granary before that. The original castle was first mentioned in historical records in 1130, and operated as a castle until 1384, when it was bought by Bern to be a residence for important people.

We were finished in the castle by 11.30, and made our way to a park overlooking the Aare River. We’ve been nearby this river many times before in other towns, including Solothurn, Brugg, and Bern. We sat on a bench and had a bit of an early lunch. As we were eating, the Kindergarten that we were sitting outside of let the children out, and they all headed home for lunch (we’re assuming). The school children here all seem to wear reflective vests when they go outside and on school trips. We’re guessing that this is so they can be easily identified by teachers and parents?

When we were finished eating, we headed off to the Bahnhof to catch the train back. Again, we pretty much showed up at the station and jumped immediately onto the next train going to Bern. The trip was another 20 minutes.

We headed directly to the Botanical Gardens when we arrived back in Bern. It seems that every large university in Switzerland has botanical gardens! The University of Bern has a large number of greenhouses, and boasts having over 6000 different plants. We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the gardens. Here are some pictures (we took quite a few…):

Some lilies - these were probably 5 feet tall, and had flowers all the way up the stem!

A very strange looking flower from the orchid house:

Jeff looking all gangster like. (Except that there was actually a plant in the way, so he was bending to look over at me).

Some MASSIVE lily pads! These things were at least a meter in diameter! (and very spiny on the bottom, which was a bit strange)

A couple turtles were hanging out in a pond outside. They looked a lot like the turtles we get in Canada.

After the gardens, we made our way to the Kunstmuseum. We had left our map back at the hostel in the morning, so we relied on our memory and street signs to find our way there. The big cities are pretty good about having obvious signs to tourist attractions, so getting around without a map isn’t too difficult.

The Kunstmuseum had 2 exhibits of modern art, along with the permanent collection. We were feeling pretty exhausted by this point, so we weren’t willing to spend the time to look at the modern art. Most of it seems pretty strange to us anyway. We took our time going through the small amount of art in the permanent collection, enjoying artists such as Matisse, Van Gogh, Picasso, Pissario, Monet, Manet, and Cezanne. Jeff started playing the “Lets quiz Mary” game, and would stand in front of the label for a painting, and make me guess who the artist was. Let’s just say that I didn’t do too well… Also, I’ve been noticing that pretty much all the art we’ve seen picturing people has contained nude women. If a man is ever pictured, he’s either fully dressed, or it’s just his face.

After the Kunstmuseum, we headed back to the hostel, and dropped by the coop on the way back to get dinner and lunch for tomorrow.

For dinner, we had:

- salad with balsamic dressing and grated carrot

- sliced bread with leftover balsamic dressing (they sell them in 75ml packages, which is a bit much for one salad)

- Spaghetti with tomato, grated zucchini and carrot, and some oregano. Jeff had some crushed chili powder from the spice rack as well.

- 1/2 a small apple pie that we purchased from a bakery around the corner. It was a little strange, because it used grated apple rather than slices, but it was still good. Nothing like pie from home though.

We're hoping to get to bed early tonight, as we plan on going to the Ballenburg Open Air Museum tomorrow! (long train ride to get there)