Let’s explore Berne
Day 6 31/8/2018
Grey skies greet us this morning, what to do.seems like a great day to try the public transport and take a train ride to the city of Berne, named after the bears that many years ago lived in numbers but now only have a small number . They keep two in a pen as reminder of where the name Berne came from. Michelle is kind enough to take us to the station at Fribourg and just like the locals we buy our ticket from the machine and a few minutes later we are on the fast train to Berne. The train is similar to the one I caught from Zurich , very comfortable seats , quite running and fast , it takes around 15 to 20 minutes to arrive. The train ticket cost $28 return.
Berne is Huge compared to Fribourg but still holds the medieval look to it . Majority of streets are made from cobble stones and the building are sand stone with small balconies with geraniums hanging from them. There is a change happening and progress is creeping in and you can see as we walked that the old is making way for the new.
The town has both electric buses and lite rail throughout in both the old and new parts of town . and in some area they are extending the lite rail to reach even further into well known tourist spots. There is a modern shopping area with,as I could see, all the up market brand names. Our walk around took us past many cafes ,most are small but all seemed busy ,the restaurants varied from standard to white table cloth setting , there was French, German, Thai, Italian and of course fast food outlet such as McDonalds, Burger King.
As is our custom we found a wine bar to have a drink , to find our directions and to use their wifi so to put those three blog you may have received, along with the photo albums ,the first 2 albums are in the wrong order from yesterday’s I think . The wine we had was really good , and even though I am busy cutting and pasting and uploading each sip of of wine just make me stop and say “ slow down and enjoy the fruit of the gods. I also had beer a pale ale of stile, refreshing , probably the best I tried so far on tour.
Ok let’s explore some more along some cobble stone streets to museum , this a very old building which has a tribute to Einstein so we go in and the cost was 18 euro so me not being that interested waited for Shirley to go through and I caught up on some NRL scores . Souths 51-10 and Penrith 22 Storm 16 ,what is going on , who will be minor premiers this year. Shirley reappears and we are both hungry, when we were walking to the museum we had spied a tiny restaurant down by the riverside, reminds me of a song went like this ,” I met my little bright eyed girl down by the riverside, “ you all know the rest I’m sure.Anyhow back to reality , a short walk and we standing in the restaurant positioned right beside the river L’aar , it’s running fast and it colour, a turquoise blue, as it is fed by the melting snow and glaziers in the alps surrounding Berne
The Restruarant is call Terresse known for its, river fish cooking, we order trout for Shirley and perch for myself and of course a white wine ,this time a Chardonnay. You know you can eat fish and ah well that was fish not this time , this restaurant by my taste buds has earned its reputation, there was nothing but bone left on my plate and Shirley’s .
It is funny how time moves quickly when you are enjoying yourself , that late lunch has move time to 4o’clock and we are still looking for the parliament building , up lane ways through arch made in the medieval day . One arch we walked through has this huge clock face on it and a crowd has gather to watch as it strikes on the hr and a whole lot of moving parts start doing their thing ,the main one is the Brass man with his hammer striking the tones of the hour.
It time to say good bye to Berne ,it has been a long but fascinating adventure and now we head back to the station as it 5:30 and Michelle is going to pick us up on our return to Fribourg and we don’t want him driving in the rain and the dark. Yes it is raining, pissing down.
So my friends and readers it is also time to say goodnight to you.
Shirley and I wish you well and tomorrow is a rest day so unless something amazing happens there will be no blog on day 7.