11 Hours in
a night train, always such great way to move onwards on this journey.
Travelling all way from Utrecht to Basel and then change train to reach final
destination – Bern. As I mentioned on my previous blog text, I’ve been once in
Bern before in year 2005, but it was still good to notice that memories are not
gone because I got some flashbacks about places in the city which made this
visit much more interesting. I met Marc at station who had listed some possible
options what to do in the Bern.
Like every
day, a good day starts with a coffee. Everyone knows that Switzerland is quite
expensive country so that’s why we had the morning coffee at the casino. Or the
actual reason was that it was Marc work place, a venue for concerts etc. so not
a gambling place at all. But before that I have already learned basics of Bern:
What is a difference between big and small platform or where is the most common
meeting place called “Löebs Corner.” I won’t tell you that so if you someday
find your way into the Bern, you need to find that out by yourself.
Few things in Bern in case you haven’t ever heard about the place before, it is actually the capital of Switzerland, not Zurich as most of people might think. There is a river that flows through the city and it is possible to go swim in it, just walk up the river a mile or two and just let the flow of river bring you back down . Name Bern is not random, city’s mascot animal is Bern which is also visible in the coat of arms. That’s why there are few bears living right next to the river. There is a cultural centre (or unofficially it just called by that name), in reality it is a kind of
community area where is arranged
different workshops, cinemas and there is also bar and day time they serving lunch.
Only problem that this area has also attracted drugs why police would like to
shut place down but political environment won’t allow to do it yet, and not
hopefully not in the future either because those are the kind of places where
an alternative urban culture is created.
There is
more than just a city, just needed to head outside of it to the hill top (Gurten) with a
great views over the city and beyond. Up there was a restaurant, camping areas,
hiking and mountain biking trails. We tried that restaurant where I tried
traditional Swiss dish: roesti potatoes with melted cheese and thin ham slices
on the top of it served on a warm pan –Delicious! Especially when the taste was
mixed up with a beer from Bern. Only problem was that view from the restaurant
was so great that eating was easily forgotten while watching the scenery. After
a meal and the night spent in a train I felt bit tired and so did Marc as he
was worked some hours from 6am in the morning, we decided to took advantage of
sunny day and lie down on the lawn top of the hill taking an hour long nap in
there. What a great relaxation moment of the day!
There was
still enough time to walk bit more around in the city, enjoy a beer and take
away food on the “small platform” where we did again spend some hours just
chilling out. After all day turned to an evening and evening turned to a night
and I crashed at Marc’s couch.
Morning after I needed to solve a problem: How
to find a connection into a Paris that would be reasonable cheap and wouldn’t
take forever, I tried to avoid high speed TGV trains because I needed to
reserve seat for those and it costs money… But after all I couldn’t and now I’m
on TGV train travelling with two Swiss guys who friendly read through my blog
correcting my horrible misspelling of “roesti” (rösti originally) and told me
the fact that Basel is cultural capital of Switzerland having over 40 museums…
Definitely not a city to discover in a day. Anyways this train will take me directly
and quickly to Paris, where I will continue to Rouen. France, the no-English
land… I’m on my way.
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