20 July 2018
This was a day where I saw the sun rose above the horizon twice on the same day. Once from the plane high in the sky over Europe after a night flight from home and again when the plane was touching down at Zurich Airport. Amazing, isn’t it?
My Swissair flight landed as scheduled and a sense of excitement filled me as I collected our luggage and walked through the airport terminal. The last time I was in Switzerland was in July 2015 where my family spent a week in Wengen, hiking in beautiful Bernese Oberland. This time round, only my eldest son was with my wife and me.
The train station is located below the arrival hall. Once again, I felt awed that I am able to safely bring a specially designed, fully loaded luggage cart onto the escalators to travel between floors.
We would be travelling around Switzerland using the Swiss Federal Railways, also known as SBB. We made use of SBB’s luggage forwarding service to send two suitcases from Zurich Airport directly to Zermatt train station, to be collected the next day. That way, we don’t have to mess with lugging suitcases up and down the trains.
We would be staying overnight in Thun on our first day in Switzerland before heading up to Zermatt for a week of hiking. On the way to Thun by train, we would spend some time in Bern. In particular, we want to see the old medieval city of Bern, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We arrived at Bern train station slightly before 9 AM, after an 80 minutes direct train ride from Zurich Airport. Bern station has modern locker facilities for us to stow our small overnight luggage for up to 6 hours for a fee of 7 CHF.
The old city of Bern is compact and best explored on foot. The Tourist Information Center is conveniently located within the train station and is the best place to obtain a detailed city map, marked with a self-guided walking tour route that we could follow. The map also showed where to find the 12 most interesting fountains or brunnens of Bern’s old city.
This was my second time in Bern. My first visit to Bern was in winter of 2008 with my family. We joined a round-Europe tour with Bern as one of the cities in the itinerary. I vaguely remember being ushered around swiftly in my group to view a couple of fountains and a large clock tower in the middle of the city. We also saw views of the city and river from a bridge and a bear pit where no bears were seen. That’s the problem with joining a group tour. I hardly remember where we went and what we saw.
This time round, armed with the city map, we could explore the city at our own pace. This is a much better way to enjoy a visit to the old town of Bern, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Just outside the train station, in the Bahnhofplatz, lays the Heiliggeistkirche or Church of the Holy Spirit, the starting point of our self-guided walking tour.
I was more intrigued by the modern looking glass roof of the tram and bus station amidst the old buildings along Spitalgasse, the main road leading eastwards into the old town.
Heiliggeistkirche or Church of the Holy Spirit at the Bahnhofplatz.
Walking along the Spitalgasse, we came to the first of the many fountains or brunnens in Bern. The colourful Pfeiferbrunnen or Bagpiper fountain is located in the middle of the busy two-way street, with electric powered trams, city buses and cars going on both sides. The buses and cars were not the only hazards for tourists getting a closer look or photographing the fountain. There are large rectangular openings on the ground, with gushing water in the drains within.
Most of these fountains are decorated with flowers in summer, had decorative water sprouts emitting water into a pool below. It is said that the water coming out of these public Swiss fountains are safe to drink. For those wanting to save some money in expensive Switzerland, it is a good opportunity to fill up the empty water bottles with free, cold, potable water.
Spitalgasse is pretty. It is lined with old buildings, decorated with colourful Swiss flags, and offered covered walkways in front of the best department stores, local boutiques, bakeries, souvenir stores and art galleries.
Cost of living is very high in Switzerland. So, it was strictly window shopping only, except maybe for the Swiss chocolates that looked so tempting.
Basements of the buildings along Bern’s shopping street are converted into shops, cafes and restaurants as well.
After passing under an archway of a medieval tower called Kafigturm, we left Spitalgasse and continued along Marktgasse.
The Anna-Seiler-Brunnen and one of the medieval towers in Bern’s old city called the Kafigturm that used to be prison. Electric trams and buses actually pass through the archway.
Clean and drinkable water from a fountain in Bern.
Marktgasse is similar to Spitalgasse but boast two beautiful fountains in the middle of the street. The Anna-Seiler-Brunnen or Anna Seiler Fountain features a statue of a woman pouring water out from a pitcher. The Schutzenbrunnen or Musketeer Fountain has a statue of a man in armour holding a banner and a long sword and a small bear aiming a musket in front of his legs.
A prominent old tower with huge clock face stood at the end of this street. I remembered this clock tower as one of the key attractions of Bern. Built in the early 13th century, the Zytglogge was Bern's first western city gate. It has served the city as guard tower, prison, clock tower, centre of urban life and civic memorial.
The Zytglogge’s astronomical calendar clock. I stood and stared at it for quite some time and still could not figure out what astronomical information was presented.
The lady at the Tourist Information Center had told us to be at this tower a few minutes before the hour to watch the clock’s mechanism from the 16th century perform its unique spectacle. I find the performance by the rooster, jester and dancing bears of the oversized cuckoo clock not too exciting, but then, considering that this clock was built hundreds of years ago, it must be some piece of engineering worth the respect and awe.
We made a detour to see the Kornhaus, a magnificent building built in the eighteenth century that serves as the granary of Bern city.
A couple of street lights in front of the Kornhaus casting interesting shadows on the building.
We ventured onto the Kornhausbrucke and had our first view of the Aare River that engulfs the city. We actually saw people swimming, or rather floating and drifting, on the river far below us.
View from Kornhausbrucke.
Kindlifresserbrunnen – PG rated for its gruesomeness.
Next to the Kornhaus was another spectacular and photo-worthy fountain called the Kindlifresserbrunnen. It shows an ogre eating a child with its right hand and on its left arm are other children hanging on, and waiting to be eaten. Quite gruesome.
Continuing eastward from the Zytglogge tower, we strolled along Kramgasse which was quite similar to the earlier shopping streets. More fountains could be seen on this street, in particular an attractive fountain called the Zähringerbrunnen.
Zähringerbrunnen fountain with Zytglogge in the background. Zähringerbrunnen was built in 1535 as a memorial to the founder of Bern, Berchtold von Zähringer.
A statue of a bear bearing a flag stood proudly on top of the fountain while a smaller bear hugged its right leg. The Zähringerbrunnen was built in 1535 as a memorial to the founder of Bern, Berchtold von Zähringer. According to legend, Berchtold shot a bear on the Aare peninsula as he was searching for a site to build a city.
The bear is now a city icon. You cannot come to Bern and not see bears. The bear symbols now appear on flags, fountains, facades decoration of buildings and bears made out of gingerbread and chocolate.
Samson fighting a lion on top of Simsonbrunnen or Samson fountain along Kramgasse.
We came to the house of Albert Einstein. Located at 49 Kramgasse, the world famous, Nobel Prize winning physicist rented, lived and wrote the Theory of Relativity here.
Side note: Einstein did not win the Nobel Prize for the Theory of Relativity. He won it for “his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".
A fee of 6 CHF is needed to see the inside of this house. If entrance fee had been lower, I may go up for a quick look. We gave it a miss and continued on our walking tour towards another fountain (Fountain of Justice) before arriving at the Nydeggbrücke, another bridge over the Aare River.
This was the bridge where, 10 years ago, we stood and took pictures of Bern in winter. The views of Bern, wrapped around the U shaped bend of the Aare River in summer from the Nydeggbrücke were just as awesome.
Views of Bern from the Nydeggbrücke bridge.
By now, the sun was high in the sky and it was getting quite warm. We crossed the bridge and turned left and walked up a sloping footpath towards the Rosengarten or Rose Garden. Along the way, we took a photo with a statue of Albert Einstein with city of Bern as the backdrop.
The terrace of Rosengarten offers excellent views of the city of Bern.
The Restaurant Rosengarten is a good place to rest our feet, have coffee and a light lunch while enjoying the Swiss summer on the terrace overlooking the city.
Recharged after our brunch, we headed back down towards the Nydeggbrücke and the BäRengraben or Bear Park. The grounds cover nearly 6,000 square meters and extend from the former BearPits down to the river’s edge.
Nice views of the city and river could also be seen from the terraces of the Bear Park.
Informative signage gave us the names and profiles of the resident bears. Finn, Björk, and their daughter Ursina have been living in the new park along the bank of Aare since 2009.
From the BearPark, we headed back across the bridge. But this time, we turned left into Junkerngasse, towards the tallest building in Bern. The Bern Münster or Cathedral of St. Vincent is also Switzerland's highest church tower.
Bern Münster or Cathedral of St. Vincent.
On top of the main portal of the cathedral are sculptures depicting the Last Judgement.
It is apt that the Moses Fountain or Mosesbrunnen is located in the Münsterplatz, the square where the cathedral is located.
Statue of Moses with the 10 Commandments on top of the Mosesbrunnen. The statue dates from 1544.
Mosesbrunnen or Moses Fountain.
By this time, I had run out of water in my water bottle as it was an unusually hot day in Bern. I filled up my water bottle with water emerging from pipes at the base of fountain and took a welcomed cold drink. Thank you Moses.
Continuing westwards from Munsterplatz, we bear left to get to Bundesterrasse offering good views of the Aare River once again.
Bundesterrasse leading to the Bundeshaus, with green dome in the background.
The Bundeshaus or Federal Palace was just round the corner.
Swiss Parliament House or Bundeshaus.
I have always thought that the capital of Switzerland is Geneva. I only learned that Bern is the capital while planning this trip. The Bundeshaus houses the Swiss Parliament, the seat of the Swiss government.
It is interesting to note the facade bears the Latin words Curia Confoederationis Helveticae.
Confoederatio Helvetica (CH) stands for Swiss Confederation. Now I understand why the Swiss franc is denoted as CHF and the internet domain name for Switzerland is “.ch”.
The Bundesplatz square in front of the Swiss Parliament House has fountains of another kind. It is nice to see kids having fun so near to a place that is so serious.
From the Bundesplatz, we made our way back to the Kafigturm and backtrack along Spitalgasse towards the train station. There was plenty of time to do more window shopping plus get a taste of Swiss ice-cream from a roadside vendor before collecting our luggage at the train station and continuing on our train journey to Thun.
Thun is another beautiful medieval town worth visiting. More about our visit to Thun in the next post.