Neat City
Trip Start
Jun 06, 2009
1
31
48
Trip End
Aug 31, 2009
Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Monday, August 3, 2009
I got a map and went to work. I managed to do the complete walking tour in about 3 hours. The city was named an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 which is pretty prestigous. I think they deserve it because the city is really neat to walk through and see. The old town is crazy small but I think it's neat to see all the fountains, towers, and cool flags hanging outside.
History time: The city was founded like 1,000 years ago by some Duke guy and it has a bear for its mascot. I've never heard it before but they have these bear pits with bears in them. So I went to the bear pits and guess what, there were no bears in them. They are building a new pen for them and don't have any bears in them now. And I guess the last one that was living in them died.
So I decided to fork over the 1 CHF for the Bern Show. Which was a 20 minute history lesson complete with ads for Bern tourist sites. It was kind of cheesy but informative. It was a mix of video with moving models and what not. They had pneumatics running a lot of it and even had some pop-up chair that for some reason was funny to me. Next I decided to check out the Einstein Museum because he lived here for a few years and supposedly worked on his famous E=mc squared theory. Well guess what? It's Monday and the museum was closed. I think that's my 4th museum that was closed on me. Nuff said. I headed into the Old Town and did find the Einstein Apartment which wasn't too exciting. It was basically a studio apt that he lived in with his wife from 1905 for like two years. Not to be Mr Negative, but they could have made it a bit better. I made it through in 10 minutes and I read all there was to read there. Afterward I hit the streets again and just wandered and enjoyed the sights. There was a pretty cool Clock Tower that was built a really long time ago and has a puppet show that has been around since 1530. Every hour this little show plays for about 30 seconds and is kind of neat. Next I hit up a dept store to buy some snacks and fruit. I found some shampoo on the 1st Fl and took it with me to the ground floor so I could buy it with my food in one purchase. Apparently this isn't allowed. Because the shampoo came from the 1st Fl, it has to be bought up there. I said fine and carried it up there to buy it. On the way I saw some delicious looking Swiss chocolate that I wanted to buy along with my shampoo. Again, since the chocolate came from a different section, I couldn't buy the two together. Even though the sections were right next to each other. The other cash register was even 30 ft away from the one I was paying at. If you ask me, that isn't very effecient. That store was basically a dept store and they had everything. If you bought socks; shampoo; and a vacuum cleaner, you would have to make 3 separate purchases because they came from different sections. Thank you Wal-Mart!
Comments
Shopping anyone?
Shopping in Zurich - yee gods who would want to?
Bern sounded like fun.
Sub-par museums - hard to top paris and Rome.
take Care