Bearish Bern

Bern, Bern. While it doesn't sound as nice as New York, New York, the place sure looks every inch as nice sounding as its name.

Today's Bern trip was mainly centred around the Old Town, which is the cultural and commercial heat of Switzerland's capital. It's very nice! I love the architecture there. The entire city looked like it was still in the 18th century but with a modern 21st century spin.

Most of the entire Old Town consist of short buildings, not more than 6 storeys. My buddy once told me the reason for the short buildings in general, but I kind of forgot... Anyway, the tallest building is the Chapter House (which unfortunately I did not visit). The building itself isn't tall, but a medium sized building among short ones make it seem like a giant. I've only seen it from afar, but it did look pretty impressive.

We started off at the train station, then, following the map, we found ourselves at a Flea Market outside the City Hall. The flea market had more stuff than the one at Riponne, I think. There were the usual cheese, meat, vegetable and bread stalls but the proportion of the variety sold were more equal than at Riponne. One would think that Riponne specialises in meat and vegetables or something... In Bern, the flea market sold cute stuff, stuffed animals, herbs, mixes, clothes that looked decent and expensive (hoo boy, are they expensive!)...
A stall selling cute stuffed animals...
A stall selling a HUGE variety of herbs and spices

Some of his wares...
Seriously, when I was at this stall, I thought something was decaying... Turns out that it was just the cheese... And they said durian stunk...

Anyway, I came across some stalls selling pickled stuff and those specialty german bread (did I mention tht Bern is in the german part of Switzerland?). I tried one of those german bread and they were pretty good. little not used to the taste of their spices but not altogether unpleasant. Pity that at 12 Fr a loaf, I didn't have the heart to buy one. Maybe a smaller and cheaper one next time...

However, I did buy some pickled olives! It's those type that are stuffed with things and marinated in oil. It wasn't cheap (at least for me)... I bought a small packet of about 100g and it cost me 3.60 Fr. Just to try anyway. I think it would go well with the ham and bread that I bought. haha....

Bern has many fountains. Each fountain has a statue of sorts on it. There is one ogre one, one musketeer one, one of a lady, one of the bible's Samson and, my favourite one of all, that of the justice, the blindfolded lady with a sword and a pair of scales.

Ok, pictures speak better than me, so I'll just give you a picture tour of what I had seen...
The City Hall, seat of power of the Swiss government.














Seriously, the reminders for easter are just everywhere! The choc Bunnies and eggs are just so elaborate!















The Swiss really REALLY like their meat and bread... MANY shops specialising on only bread or meat...










































Fountain with a knight (the musketeer I think) and that with justice.



This is the clock tower, a close and far shot of the clock tower...
A visit to Einstein's house. Do you know that Einstein came up with his Theory of Relativity when he was only 26!! No one would doubt that he is true blue physicist. The outline of his house was drawn with greek letters to represent rooms.... Look closer and you can see that lamda is for nothing (the middle)... I don't think german has these letters right...

I went to several other places and took more photos. But I really lament the fact that the stupid Olympus sucks soo much battery and that the phone camera sometimes give shitty results. Sigh, I can't stand blury pictures so there's no point keeping them. These are about most of my well-taken pictures...

I'm so gonna buy proper batteries for the olympus tomorrow. Batteries are relly expensive here, about 12Fr for a pack of 6, about 2.5 times more ex than that in Singapore... Should have brought a whole 12 pack here when I came...

Next up: Gruyeres.
My friend and I decided that it might not be the best season to see Interlaken (and its expensive to go there...) so we settled on a place that's closer to Lausanne, which is Gruyeres.

I'll tell you more about it when I get back tomorrow, IF I'm not too tired to give you such a lengthy account...