Bern and Lucerne

If you read Saturday morning's post --- I actually missed that bus because I took the 10 minutes to write an update. But it is just a 5 minute walk to the tram, so I still made my 7:45am train to Bern.

I traveled with fellow Hopkins students Jill and Jennifer to Bern --- we arrived around 9:30am. We wandered down the main strip in old town Bern --- and meandered through the Saturday morning market:

Stopped for picture time in front of the Bundeshäuser --- Swiss Parliament:

And snapped a picture of this famous clock tower that was Einstein's inspiration for his theory of relativity when he lived in an apartment in Bern in 1905:

Unfortunately, Einstein's actual apartment was closed to viewing due to water damage.

Next was climbing the 344 steps up Münster Cathedral --- its 100m tower is Switzerland's tallest. We got some pretty amazing views out of it:

That second picture is me with Jennifer Lam --- the Hopkins PhD student we also traveled with to Bern.

Then we saw the sight for which Bern apparently gets its name --- because way back when the city's founder killed a bear hunting in this area --- so today there are still bears living in Bärenpark:

This location is certainly much improved over the "bear pit" that the bears lived in until 2009, but it still seems a pretty small enclosure to me. Jill was a bit depressed over the whole thing. But we all agreed the bears looked cute enough to cuddle! Even if that would be a really, really bad idea...

We ate at Lonely Planet recommended Altes Tramdepot next to the bear park. There were a couple food-related mishaps since I forgot to bring my German celiac disease card (I have great diet cards in several languages that I laminated to take with me everywhere --- and promptly forgot them on the first trip...) but I did end up eating a yummy hash brown-like dish called rösti:

After lunch, Jennifer left to head back to another town she wanted to visit on her way back to Geneva. Jill and I walked back on the other side of the river for a few more great views of beautiful Bern:

Then we split up for a bit and I went to the Kunst Fine Arts museum to see some great modern art (the little museum had Chagall, Marc, Kandinsky, Pollock and Picasso pieces --- who knew), before meeting back up for the 5pm train to Lucerne.

Lucerne (or Luzern in the German) is just about an hour train ride from Bern, so the sun was still shining when we got there.

It was a quick 15 minute walk to the hostel --- Backpackers Lucerne --- which was right on the lake (if you ever need a Lucerne hostel --- it was definitely a great place for 30CHF!). Saturday night activities included dinner, visiting with our Aussie roommate at the hostel who is in the middle of backpacking for 6 months (I could never do that...), and going to bed.

Sunday morning we got up and headed out to grab breakfast and take a ferry across the lake so we could do a relatively easy 3.5 hour hike that Lonely Planet suggested. Some views from the ferry:

Unfortunately, when we arrived in Bürgenstock, we realized that the funicular up the mountain wasn't running on Sunday, so we had to figure something else out. Jill and I just started walking around lake. Stopped for this picture:

And this one:

And eventually we realized --- hey, we could either wander around back and forth until the next ferry comes in 4 hours... OR... we could walk back to the hostel in Lucerne. Guess what we decided? So Sunday turned into an absolutely epic 16.4-kilometer (10.2-mile) walk around the lake back to the hostel. Here's what the route looks like:

 
So we walked mostly around the lake and the weather and the views were absolutely gorgeous.  

About halfway through, we stopped for lunch in a little town called Hergiswil, and I got a pork chop and salad that looked like this:

We had a little more lakeside walking after Hergiswil, but after we got to Horw (I spent all day trying to pronounce it, and I gave up), it was mostly urban walking. We had a few missteps and backtracking and several interesting encounters, including a horse and a paraglider, but also these weird little houses and gardens that we could NOT figure out:

They didn't even appear big enough to lay down in and yet there were people coming in and out of them, or sitting at tables in front of them. Anyway, pretty soon we started to see signs for Lucerne:

And finally, 5 hours later, we arrived back at the hostel! We actually rushed straight from the hostel back to the train station to catch the 5pm train back to Geneva... and I slept quite soundly last night and woke up without too much soreness today! But I am incredibly proud of myself in general. Weekend trip one was a resounding success! Next weekend: Interlaken.