Friday morning was such a treat to leave for a weekend trip when it was still light outside! Usually, we schedule trips with the first train out of Riva (somewhere in the 6AM range), but today we got a little extra sleep before the trip. The train ride was around 4 hours and we got to Bern around 2PM. It was really terrible out, raining and cold, and to top it off, apparently Bern is a week behind in their Carnival so it was the weekend we were there! It is like we cannot escape it, Carnival is following me. Despite the weather, I really liked Bern! It’s the capital of Switzerland so there are a lot of political buildings around but also some really neat sites. But it still maintains the feel of a quaint German town, it is awfully cute.
We found our hostel to put our stuff away and headed to the Einstein Museum, a huge site in Bern since it was here that Einstein lived and worked while developing his Theory of Relativity. The museum was interesting, but very hard to follow. There was almost too much information in it and I now know more about Albert Einstein that I ever wanted to, but it is a must see site in Bern. Afterwards we trecked through the rain to the cathedral (which was closed) and then to the one thing I was really excited about seeing, the bears!! The bear is the city symbol of Bern and there is a bear pit near the river running beside the city that 4 live. They have a pretty sweet set up, tons of space and things to play with. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that bears don’t like the rain…they were all inside :-( The picture above is the only bear I saw that day.
After the disappointing bear pit we headed back to the hostel to get ready before dinner. Before going on this trip, we had heard rumors about how expensive it would be. Apparently, not only is Switzerland one of the richest countries in the world, Bern and Geneva are the two most expensive places in Switzerland. This wasn’t that noticeable until we needed to eat. We found a pizza place that had pizzas starting at 15 (the cheapest we found) and decided to suck it up and pay. This wouldn’t have been that bad except the pizzas were personal pan sizes! It took us all only few minutes to eat them and then begrudgingly pay the check. As soon as we left, we found a grocery store on the way back and stopped in for our actual dinner haha That night we walked around the streets of Carnival but did not partake, I was tiered and frankly uninterested in it, although I did get some great Halloween costume ideas :-)
Saturday we took an early train from Bern to Geneva and got in around 1PM. We found our hostel easily, dropped our bags off and started exploring. Lake Geneva was absolutely gorgeous! It has the Jet d’Eau which is a huge geyser type thing that shoots up in the middle and there are boat tours that you can take around the area. We walked around, found some lunch, then headed up to see the United Nations building. You couldn’t go inside (we are guessing it was closed), but I got the general idea of it. We then went to the American Red Cross Museum, which was started in Geneva, Switzerland. It was a really great museum (much better than the Einstein one) and I learned a lot about the start and the current work of the Red Cross. Our original plan was to go to Cern, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory that was written about in Dan Brown’s Angles and Demons, which is supposed to be nerdy but a really cool experience. Unfortunately, the tours are booked up until mid-march so I didn’t get a chance to check it out. So after the Red Cross Museum, we headed back to the hostel for a quick nap before going to dinner and then out.
Since I have the rail pass that allows me to use any trains on a day I specify, I wasn’t limited to a specific train to take back on Sunday. Our group of 8 split up on Sunday as some went home fairly early and mine walked around Geneva a bit more. We visited the St. Pierre Cathedral, which was in service, making it even better since we could hear the music from outside. My original plan was to go to the contemporary arts museum nearby but we found a really awesome market by the water where we spent a lot of time walking through. After that, I decided against another museum and headed home around 2, getting us back into Riva around 7.
This week is a short one for us since half the students (the theater kids) are going on a field trip Wednesday night. Since I have a 4 day weekend, my roommate Kate and I have planned a trip to PARIS!
We found our hostel to put our stuff away and headed to the Einstein Museum, a huge site in Bern since it was here that Einstein lived and worked while developing his Theory of Relativity. The museum was interesting, but very hard to follow. There was almost too much information in it and I now know more about Albert Einstein that I ever wanted to, but it is a must see site in Bern. Afterwards we trecked through the rain to the cathedral (which was closed) and then to the one thing I was really excited about seeing, the bears!! The bear is the city symbol of Bern and there is a bear pit near the river running beside the city that 4 live. They have a pretty sweet set up, tons of space and things to play with. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that bears don’t like the rain…they were all inside :-( The picture above is the only bear I saw that day.
After the disappointing bear pit we headed back to the hostel to get ready before dinner. Before going on this trip, we had heard rumors about how expensive it would be. Apparently, not only is Switzerland one of the richest countries in the world, Bern and Geneva are the two most expensive places in Switzerland. This wasn’t that noticeable until we needed to eat. We found a pizza place that had pizzas starting at 15 (the cheapest we found) and decided to suck it up and pay. This wouldn’t have been that bad except the pizzas were personal pan sizes! It took us all only few minutes to eat them and then begrudgingly pay the check. As soon as we left, we found a grocery store on the way back and stopped in for our actual dinner haha That night we walked around the streets of Carnival but did not partake, I was tiered and frankly uninterested in it, although I did get some great Halloween costume ideas :-)
Saturday we took an early train from Bern to Geneva and got in around 1PM. We found our hostel easily, dropped our bags off and started exploring. Lake Geneva was absolutely gorgeous! It has the Jet d’Eau which is a huge geyser type thing that shoots up in the middle and there are boat tours that you can take around the area. We walked around, found some lunch, then headed up to see the United Nations building. You couldn’t go inside (we are guessing it was closed), but I got the general idea of it. We then went to the American Red Cross Museum, which was started in Geneva, Switzerland. It was a really great museum (much better than the Einstein one) and I learned a lot about the start and the current work of the Red Cross. Our original plan was to go to Cern, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory that was written about in Dan Brown’s Angles and Demons, which is supposed to be nerdy but a really cool experience. Unfortunately, the tours are booked up until mid-march so I didn’t get a chance to check it out. So after the Red Cross Museum, we headed back to the hostel for a quick nap before going to dinner and then out.
Since I have the rail pass that allows me to use any trains on a day I specify, I wasn’t limited to a specific train to take back on Sunday. Our group of 8 split up on Sunday as some went home fairly early and mine walked around Geneva a bit more. We visited the St. Pierre Cathedral, which was in service, making it even better since we could hear the music from outside. My original plan was to go to the contemporary arts museum nearby but we found a really awesome market by the water where we spent a lot of time walking through. After that, I decided against another museum and headed home around 2, getting us back into Riva around 7.
This week is a short one for us since half the students (the theater kids) are going on a field trip Wednesday night. Since I have a 4 day weekend, my roommate Kate and I have planned a trip to PARIS!
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