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Published: April 8th 2012
Beautiful Bern
From the Munster to the Aare RiverSo having arrived in Bern, I awoke to my shoebox-sized two-bed dorm on saturday morning (30th August), and immediately ventured into town for a good look around and some much-needed breakfast. Having missed the eleven o'clock guided tour of the parliament building, then spent half-an-hour wandering around the main train station looking for the tourist office, before ultimately deciding not to even bother checking out either of the two museums I had hoped to visit because they were each charging eighteen Swiss Francs (roughly the same amount as in Australian dollars) for admission; I ended up heading back to the parliament building just in time for the two o'clock guided tour - which was not only free, but also, despite the national council chamber being closed to the public due to renovations, very impressive.
My next and most important task for the day was to purchase a new towel (at last count I had lost four so far this trip!) before checking out a large bookshop with an extensive english-language section, to stock up on reading matter for what could be a long, cold winter to come! (My selections including 'The State Of Africa' by Martin Meredith, 'My Life' by
Beautiful river
More of the Aare River Fidel Castro and, of course, The Lonely Planet guide to Mediterranean Europe - which will serve as research material for my summer holiday next year!) And so having stocked up on books and purchased a fluffy new beach towel, and with the sun shining away amidst a clear, blue sky, there was only one place to go - the magnificent Marzili Pools beside the Aare River!
To someone like myself who enjoys the simple things in life, this place is about as close to paradise on earth (or at least paradise in a capital city) as it gets. Picture a large, open-air swimming complex complete with various pools, diving boards etc., surrounded by fields of grass covered in eager sunbathers, beside a river that people float down by the hundreds, and with the majestic parliament building looming ever-present in the background; and you might have some idea of how enjoyable and relaxing this place is. And just to top things off, there is no admission fee! For all that I've seen and done on this holiday, I'm not sure that anything could quite compare to the simple pleasure of gazing up at the sky whilst floating lazily down the
One of my favourite views in all of Europe
Locals floating down the Aare River, backed by the House of Parliament Aare River.
In fact, when I eventually decided to leave, just as the sun was beginning to hide behind the trees, the first thing I did was stop in at the local youth hostel located about three minutes away from the pools - as opposed to the one I had booked my first two nights in, which was at least twenty minutes walk away - to book a bed for the following night; since despite having previously decided to wrap up my holiday in Basel the very next day (which would coincide with the last day of summer) there was no way I was going anywhere as long as the sun was out in Bern! And as if to justify my last-minute change of plans, I had only a few hours earlier gotten a message from a Swiss friend of mine named Sueheyla - whom I had met in Airlie Beach a year-and-a-half ago - inviting me to come and stay with her in Zurich!
So sure enough as soon as I woke up on sunday, I checked out of one hostel and headed straight over to the other, where the rather
A capital city's crowning glory
Bern's House of Parliament overlooking the Aare River & Marzili Pools urgent task of booking a flight back to Norway required my full attention. Still unsure of whether to spend one more week in Switzerland so I could stay with Sue next weekend, or head back to Bergen in time for the R.E.M. concert this coming thursday night, I gathered all of the relevant flight information from the internet, and then made the wise decision to think it over while spending another afternoon lazing about in the sun down at the pools!
My mind having been made after I received another message from Sue saying that while I was welcome to stay with her for as long as I like, she would have to work this weekend - as she works for Red Bull, who are sponsoring a bike event - my first order of business on monday was to book a three-way flight from Zurich to Stockholm to Oslo to Bergen for this thursday, and then order a ticket for the R.E.M. concert in Bergen that same night. Talk about no rest for the wicked - though how I'm going to pay for all of this I have no idea!
With that out of the way, and with
Zurich cityscape
Zürich's Grossmünster overlooking the Limmat River the weather in Bern having taken a turn for the worse, I hopped on a train to Basel in the north-west of the country where the Swiss, German and French borders all meet, and spent the afternoon wandering around the old town and checking out the thirteenth-century Munster (Cathedral) and Rathus (Town Hall). Before long though I had grown bored of Basel and decided to hop on another train to Zurich to spend my final three days of freedom there.
Despite not being the capital, Zurich is twice the size of any other city in Switzerland - yet still with a population of only about a third of a million people. It also happens to be a very attractive city, which I soon discovered after following the pedestrian-only Bahnhofstrasse from the train station to the edge of Lake Zurich; then doubling back alongside the Schanzengraben Canal until it emptied into the Sihl River; which I then followed until it joined the Limmatt River; which in turn brought me back to the shore of Lake Zurich! With all of that water and plenty of low bridges, it actually reminded me of Stockholm - which is definately not a bad thing.
Low bridges and soaring towers
More of Zürich's historic riverside After agreeing to meet up with Sue the following day after she had finished work, I spent my first night in Zurich at a big, new hostel not far from the centre of town; which I promptly then checked out of the next morning. After stashing my bags in a locker at the central train station I took a train north to the town of Schauffhausen, which is near the border with Germany on the Rhine River. From there I jumped on a local train to nearby Stein am Rhein, where the Rathausplatz (central square) was lined with cute old buildings covered in medieval frescoes; before taking yet another boat cruise down the Rhine River back to Schauffhausen. From there I walked further alongside the river until I came to the impressive Rhine Falls - which despite being only 23 metres high are considered to be the biggest waterfall in Europe due to the sheer volume of water flowing over them. I was even able to take a small boat out to a rocky outcrop in the centre of the falls, where a stairway led up to a tiny observation platform.
A couple of hours later I was
The gathering tempest
The Rhine River, just above Rhine Falls on my way back to Zurich, where I was finally re-united with Sue whom I had previously only seen over a year ago. Needless to say the hours flew by as we caught up on each other's news from the last sixteen months, swapping travel stories - Sue had spent a full year travelling through Hawaii, Australia and South-East Asia before returning to Switzerland last September - and tucking into a lovingly prepared meal of... wait for it... horse meat!!! Despite my initial reluctance - and Sue's insistence that she had over-cooked it - the meat was actually quite nice; though perhaps the flavour was enhanced somewhat by my rather optimistic belief that the fillet I was dining out on had belonged to one of the useless donkeys that cost me a fortune on the races last year!
Wednesday (3rd September) - my last day before returning to Norway - was a low-key affair. With Sue at work all day I spent the first few hours filling up on coffee while attempting to catch up on my e-mail correspondence on Sue's laptop computer; though I did manage to make it down to the lake for a couple of hours
Another happy reunion
With Süheyla in Zürich of relaxation in the afternoon, which included paddling out to a pontoon in the lake upon which a sixteen-jet fountain is fixed.
Unfortunately by the time Sue had made it home from work the heavens had opened, foiling our plan of going up to the top of a hill overlooking the city for dinner; so instead we walked to a small Thai restaurant nearby where the food was delicious and the waiter as gay as christmas! (Thankfully he spoke German, so I was none the wiser when he told Sue "he good-looking young man - and single too...?!") So once again Sue and I spent an entire evening chatting away, with my experiences clearly having rekindled Sue's travel aspirations; and once again before we knew it midnight had come and gone, so it was time to draw the curtains on my final night of travel in Europe.
Bye for now.
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