J&J's European Adventure

13 July

Bern, Switzerland

A reasonably short march got us to the train station just in time to hop aboard for Bern. This train had AC and we got a private compartment in which to enjoy the ride and catch up on the journal and picture processing. I had my first casualty of the trip yesterday when I blew out the toe of a sock, so I used one of our free Spanish-train sewing kits to repair it while we rode.

We were very impressed with Bern. For a largish city, it was extremely clean and very pedestrian friendly. There are many fountains with colorful, themed statues in them, the most notable of which was an ogre in the process of having babies for his lunch. You just don't see that every day. We hiked most of the suggested tourist-bureau walking tour, visiting the rose gardens and Einstein's house along the way. Bern used to mean bear in some language way back when, and for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, bears have been kept in a pit there. The pit is now a pretty nice habitat, and the bears are very popular.

We noticed instantly that food and lodging are much more expensive here. Food in restaurants seems to be more than double Germany's prices. Lodging is nearly double from our brief experience. I noticed that diesel fuel goes for the equivalent of $6.25 per gallon.

We pressed on to Interlaken, which we planned to use as a base for exploring the Jung Frau region – the real alpine Switzerland from the movies. Interlaken was a huge disappointment. If I had to nominate one place for the biggest tourist trap in the world, it would be Interlaken. Tourism seems to be the only thing they have going, and they take full advantage of their gateway-to-the-Alps location. Food is about triple what we're used to, and lodging is ridiculous. We got quoted from $180 to $300 for a simple room. We ended up staying in a double room in a hostel for $130.

Daily miles: 7.68

Expenses: none recorded

Bern statues