Switzerland – Bern

To leave France for Switzerland required us to hire a car for a day, costing as much as a weeks’ hire in Portugal, to drive from Avallon to Dijon (local trains were on strike), where there were plenty of connections to Bern, our first Swiss stop. We ended up going via Lausanne, where we changed to a Swiss train for Bern.

We met a very helpful (and attractive) young Swiss lady, Nathalie, who helped us make the connection between Lausanne and Bern, and who gave us lots of insights into Bern and its history. Apparently a popular pastime is jumping into the rapidly flowing (and very cold) River Aare and bobbing along until you can scramble out. There are maps showing where you can and can't get in and out - the cold weather seems to have delayed the start of the season this year however.

We stayed in the Hotel Kreuz, near the Bahnhof (although not as near as the superb looking but hugely priced Schweizerhof), but convenient for a night’s stay.

We strolled around the old town and were impressed as always by Swiss neatness and orderliness, and the prosperous nature of the city, the Federal capital of Switzerland. This is the German speaking part of the country, so my dodgy Deutsch was useful, although most Swissies have excellent English, usually along with several other languages.

In the morning, after sorting out our train tickets for the rest of our 9 day stay in the country, we spent a couple of hours in the main museum, which has a permanent Einstein exhibition, set up in 2005 on the 100^th anniversary of the publication of his original paper on Relativity Theory. Interesting look at the life and times of Albert, and some great animations of a few relativity experiments.

From Bern we then headed via Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, in the Jungfraujoch region of the mountains.