(Bern general commentary:) It's a really beautiful place. On the last day, the water in the Aare seemed to finally be warm enough to maybe swim in, but that was the day I was leaving, and it would've been hard to shuffle the luggage and the swimclothes and whatnot. So, maybe I will make it back at some point and be able to try floating down the Aare. I think the bears in the Bärgraben were some of the best bits of Bern (outside of the epic views of the Alps). I'm glad I saw them post-renovation. Stories of the pre-renovation Bärgraben seem pretty grim. Here's a site that details the old and new stuff a bit, and some of what they said:
"The [previous enclosure] was opened on May 27, 1857. Twelve or more bears were intermittently kept in the 3.5 metre deep pit. Between 1994 and 1996, this historic enclosure, a monument of national importance, was completely renovated to improve conditions for the bears."It was nice being some place where the one foreign language I knew a bit of was somehow helpful. There was some word bleed-over from French, which mattered when trying to order lunch. E.g. "Poulet" instead of "Hänchen"(chicken). I found the accent understandable (I'm guessing people used Hochdeutsch to respond when I asked for something at a drugstore or in a restaurant, rather than Suissedeutsch) and nice, sort of melodic (reminded me of Scandinavian languages), although also with a lot of the kind of "ch" sound one might find in Hebrew (like the "ch" in "challah") rather than the softer "ch" I've gotten used to.
I'd visit again, and definitely suggest you all to go if you have the chance. Enjoy the last block of my Bern adventure.
I. The Gurten
So, there's a nice hill (''the Gurten" or "Bern's local mountain") around Bern that people do some gentle skiing on when there's some snow. Regardless of snow, there's a funicular (mountain elevator -- looks like a train, but the mechanism is like an elevator) that goes up it and there seemed like there'd be a nice view from there.
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
I saw a few Swiss versions of "Fachwerkhäuse" en route; here's the one at the base of the Gurten:
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
Here's the view out of one Gurten-car to the other:
There were several nice paths around the top of the hill. One ended in a nice panoramic view of the Alps, complete with a little infographic telling you which peaks were which, and how high they are (in meters 4078m is a bit more than 2.5 miles):
Better yet, the view in a few pieces:
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
So, the Gurten's top is sort of flat-ish, and has some nice hiking paths, as well as a restaurant, a really cool kid's play area, and an observation hour. The kids are has the following, which is called a Kugelbahn in German, but I guess maybe I'd just call a Rube Goldberg machine:
The goal is to figure out how to move a ball (or more) from one side of the U to the other, via various mechanisms that sometimes required (as you can see) jumping up and down on levers, possibly while simultaneously spinning others:
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
Here's a view of the observation deck from the observation deck:
The next is a nice picture of the Gurten's top (which may be called "Swiss flat"). The lower righthand corner is this big wooden kids play area, adjacent to the Kugelbahn, the upper left is roughly where I was looking out at the alps a few pictures back:
Besides the cool wooden climbing/play area and the Kugelbahn, there were also pay-as-you-go go-cart type things that even the tiniest kids were piloting by themselves and there was also a rideable mini-train. It made a lap or two around an area including those carts and also went through a tunnel. I was surprised that it was sturdy enough to support both children and adults. The driver appeared to be Ken:
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
II. Botanical Garden
The botanical garden was between my hotel and the train station, so a logical choice of thing to visit. They had a lot of neat plants, as well as a sort of exhibit (interlaced with the normal ones) on (dangerously) invasive plants.
The first cool plant was the "Man Eater's Tomato" (it (supposedly) helped the people of Fiji digest human flesh (which they ate only on rare/ceremonial occasions)).
I learned that the German word (well, at least in Bern) for "Succulent" (as in, the desert plants) is "Sukkulent". Here's one of my favorites:
as well as a similar one:
The first cool plant was the "Man Eater's Tomato" (it (supposedly) helped the people of Fiji digest human flesh (which they ate only on rare/ceremonial occasions)).
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
I learned that the German word (well, at least in Bern) for "Succulent" (as in, the desert plants) is "Sukkulent". Here's one of my favorites:
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
as well as a similar one:
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
and some in bloom, even:
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
and more desert plants!-- I saw a cushion for sale (maybe a stool?well, something you sit on) with patterned fabric to make it look like these round cacti in the foreground:
I really love the love of desert plants here. Maybe akin to trying to raise orchids in the desert (which we had had a neighbor do, when I lived in the mountains of New Mexico).
Here's something that was news to me. The prickly pear cactus (Aufrechter Feigenkaktus) is on the 100 most invasive plant species list. As you can (maybe) tell, it wasn't doing so well in Bern, though.
Here's something that was news to me. The prickly pear cactus (Aufrechter Feigenkaktus) is on the 100 most invasive plant species list. As you can (maybe) tell, it wasn't doing so well in Bern, though.
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| From Arolla-Switzerland 2012 |
The German names for a lot of these made good sense. This is the "Red Cat-tail":
There were several greenhouses of varying climates. I, of course, walked through when they were being watered. Although, maybe that was pretty often anyway, since these were palms/tropical:
Here's some pretty flowers from the greenhouse, without commentary:
On the most-invasive-species list was also a type of water plant which had become invasive because of botanical gardens using them all over because they seemed decorative. Turns out the stuff grew like a weed (think 'kudzu', if you're from the south, but in the water) and choked up waterways to make them impassible. Each invasive plant exhibit included commentary on what people had done to try to remove them and how effective their efforts were.
