The ABCs of Switzerland: Aare, Bern, Chocolate

I’ve wanted to visit Switzerland since I was a kid. So it’s a bit surprising that Switzerland is one of the last countries in Western Europe that I’ve entered (as of today, Spain and Portugal are the only other big continental Western Europe countries I’ve yet to visit, though that should change in the next few weeks).

My only full day in Switzerland started with a “family” breakfast with Urs, his wife Sonja, their kids Lukas and Lena, and Andreas. It was fun to see Lena’s face light up when she saw the Oregon salmon on the table. Then the intrepid geocachers — Urs, Andreas and yours truly — went to Bern for the day. We took a local train to central Bern which is a lovely city along the Aare River, a river I’d previously only heard of in crossword puzzles where it’s popular because of having so many vowels in it. It’s a pretty, green, fast-moving river that apparently the locals swim in, downstream only, during the summer. 

Urs is very knowledgeable about the city, and provided great commentary throughout the day. We saw (and I took a picture with) a bench with a sculpture of Albert Einstein sitting on it (hmm, I’ve shared benches with Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein and others….wonder if there’s a resource that shows other benches with statues of famous people). We walked over to parliament — this is getting to be a habit as I’ve already seen parliaments in Paris and Vaduz (Liechtenstein’s capitol) on this trip. 

The front of parliament used to be a parking lot…which made me wonder whether there’s an “opposite” version of the lyric “they paved paradise to put up a parking lot.”  Now the front of parliament is a lovely plaza that includes a 26-spigot fountain coming out of the plaza (26 because there are 26 Swiss Cantons [states]) that is apparently fun to watch in the summer as tourists get surprised to discover they’re in the middle of the fountain. As Urs pointed out, the other three sides of the plaza are banks which demonstrates who really controls Switzerland The parliament is based on the US system with and upper house and a lower house, though with multiple parties (not just two) and (to me) dizzyingly complex election processes; the executive branch consists of 7 ministers who rotate the chair on an annual basis. 

Bern’s Old Town looks typically European — buildings next to each other, all with red roofs. Unlike some of the more colorful medieval communities with brightly colored buildings, Bern’s old town streets are generally monochromatic, though the backs are decorated more uniquely. All of the buildings look quite similar, but the width of the building was a good proxy for the wealth of the original owner (richer people had bigger buildings). We crossed the Aare a few times, including once on a bridge that has an orange street sign in honor of the Dutch football (soccer) team supporters when an important competition was in Bern. Near that bridge is a theatre that has a large colorful statue of a giraffe in front of it, or to be more specific a boy giraffe. 

Bern has a nice astronomical clock, and we had the good fortune to be there for the ever-so-brief top of the hour action. We entered a church, where my Pavlovian yawn response kicked in (as it did again when I typed this). There were a few caching opportunities, including two where both of the previous finders I was with made me find the cache on my own. Seems the person who named Bern had named so many other towns that he was out of names so the story goes that he went hunting and named the town after the first animal he found me, namely the bear. We saw the town bear pit and one or both of the inhabitants. 

After a nice lunch where I enjoyed a salad topped by chicken and a sparkling apple (non-alcoholic) beverage Urs suggested ice cream/sorbet. Andreas and I were good sports and acquiesced to this preposterous idea. We walked along the river to the gelaterie that Urs claims is the best in the area but the line was rather long so we rode a short funicular back up the hill and took a tram to a different location of the same business (happily we had considered this possibility and purchased day-long transit passes for Andreas and me). Surprisingly, given Swiss prices, the ice cream/sorbet was cheaper than what I’d paid in Paris. I am happy to report that the chocolate was excellent, thought he lemon was merely good. We sat down outside to eat our treats, and an older gentleman recognized the geocaching logo on Andreas’ jacket; seems he had just started caching a month or so ago. He, his wife (I assume that’s who the nice woman with him was) and the German-speakers had a lovely conversation though most of it was in German so I missed a lot. He was a bit confused about how a Swiss, a German and an American just happened to bump into each other at a geocache until we explained that we had met near Frankfurt (Andreas and me) in 2007 and in Vienna (Urs and me) in 2017 and that it was not a coincidence that we were together this weekend. Did I mention that the man and the woman with him had a lovely, well-behaved, rather large doodle dog who was fun to pet and photograph? 

We stopped to purchase some Swiss chocolate because, well, because it would be wrong to visit this beautiful place and not sample one of their most well-known delicacies. Eventually we made our way back to Urs’ home where we enjoyed a delicious homemade dinner of sausages, steak, potatoes, salad and nice conversation. After Andreas headed home — via a much more efficient route than Saturday’s — Urs, Sonja and I talked for awhile before calling it a night. 

My taste of Switzerland has moved this country higher on my bucket list of places to visit. I don’t know when, but I definitely want to explore much of what this beautiful location has to offer. It is telling when an Oregonian refers to an area as “green” and that description applies to just about every area of the country that I saw, admittedly with the exception of snow-covered peaks which offer a different type of beauty. 

Exiting Switzerland proved a wee bit more exciting than planned but it all worked out. Urs graciously offered to bring me to the train station — meaning he walked me from his home to the local station where we planned to take the local train to the Bern station where he would help me navigate to the train before returning home to work for the day. As we arrived at the local station there was an overhead announcement, in German, that our train was significantly delayed. Ok, not enough time to get the planned pretzel in Bern so go to the local station to pick up breakfast food, no big deal. As we leave with my breakfast food Urs notices that the train is 25 minutes late. Houston, we have a problem. 

Fortunately, Urs is part of a car coop so offers to rent a car to drive me in, though with rush hour traffic we may not arrive in time. Ok, at least I’d have a native speaker (and railroad employee) to help me figure out plan B in case I miss the train, so despite my instinct to worry I remain blissfully calm. We go to the coop car and just as Urs had used his phone app to access the vehicle, he sees a train arriving so he aborts the transaction (one hopes successfully) and we board the train for the uneventful trip to Bern. Turns out my train hasn’t arrived yet and the pretzel place is next to my track so I get the pretzel after all (alas, it wasn’t quite as good as yesterday’s). We walk up the ramp to the track, stand approximately where my car (“wagon”) should arrive and it turns out we’re within a few meters of the correct car when the train arrives and stops a few minutes later. Urs even boarded with me, escorted me to my seat, stowed my suitcase (which he’d generously carried and wheeled from his kitchen all the way to the train for me), then departed and waved. 

As I sit on the train typing, I’m reminded of a joke Urs reminded me of last night: What do you call a person who speaks two languages — bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks three languages — trilingual. What do you call a person who speaks one language — American. I’m sitting on a train where the verbal announcements are in German, Italian and English (interestingly it was German first until we crossed the border then Italian first) and the written announcements are in German, Italian, French and English. The people across the table from me are speaking German, the people across the aisle are speaking French (I understand much more of the latter), I’ve heard snippets of Italian, and I sit here typing in English. (The second train had announcements only in Italian and English.)

I’ve been incredibly spoiled since Wednesday night when Arnaud navigated the French for me and Andreas and Urs navigated the German for me…..I could have handled all of the situations, but certainly appreciated the luxury of being with native speakers. 

I started writing this in Switzerland, and by the time I finished I was in Italy. Here’s hoping the next chapter of this vacation is even half as good as the first part!