You might be wondering why Bern? Many people asked us that along our trip and to be honest, I didn’t really expect to include Bern. We knew we wanted to go to Switzerland and we wanted to go to a smaller city to get a break from the bigger cities like Madrid, Rome, and Berlin. I didn’t even know Bern was a city before we started planning for the trip, but our trusty Rick Steves travel guide said good things about it. Namely, it talked about the Aare, the glacial river that runs through the heart of Bern that locals are known to float down during their lunch breaks. Aside from swimming in the Aare, we had no idea what there was to do in Bern. So, we started our day off by heading to the river with nothing but the clothes on our backs.

Prior to our arrival, it had been raining quite heavily in Switzerland. This meant that the river had approximately four times as much water in it as usual (Source: woman who advised us not to swim in the river). The bright blue water was moving quickly and we definitely considered listening to the woman, but we really wanted to get in the water. Every year, a few people drown in the Aare and locals try to do their part to prevent stupid tourists from being those drowned. Another man approached us, again with a warning, but he also suggested a calmer place to get in a little further up the river. This place had a beach exit instead of having to grab onto one of the poles that they have on the river banks further down.

In addition to an increase in water and speed, the rain had also made the river very cold. It was in the mid 60s. When we arrived at our entry point of choice, we slowly made our way into the water, but didn’t make it very far. That’s when we met two middle-aged men, Eric (Quebecois) and Patrick (Swiss), who were also planning to go for a swim. They told us we could go with them and then they jumped in right away. It was Eric’s first time, but he told us he was a whitewater kayaker; he didn’t seem very phased by the cold, rushing water. We went on a few short runs down the river with them and after Patrick showed us how to get out with the poles, we were much more comfortable.

The Aare

After they left, we decided that we’d try to go a little further. Unfortunately, our first run did not go quite as planned. We were too close together, so when we were exiting the river, Guy was still right by the pole by the time I reached it too. I missed the pole and raced away from him. This was very scary. I was scared. Missing the pole was not a pleasant experience. But Patrick had told us the one thing you can’t do is panic, so I tried to remain calm. There’s a pole every hundred feet or so, so all I had to do was wait the few seconds it would take for me to reach the next one. Unfortunately, I missed that one too. Also scary. Still scared. But I made it out on the next one. Phew. Still alive. Cold. Muscles shaking. From fear, shock, or cold? Not sure, but we took a little break after that where we went looking for drinking water.

The Aare Again

We ended up drinking from a fountain that was probably potable and I started feeling a lot better. We decided to get back in and I felt comfortable again. We floated down about a kilometer and then did it again because it was so much fun. After a few runs, we saw two guys with a volleyball on an empty court and we asked them if they wanted to play. Volleyball is so much fun. Even though I haven’t played in months and have never really played beach, we held our own and had a great time.

Without our phones, we were lost in Bern (we also couldn’t take any pictures), but we got back to the hostel with the help of various locals along the way. It was almost 4pm when we got back so we only had a few more hours in Bern before our 6:04 train to Interlaken. We didn’t want to drop a ton of money on lunch, so we went looking for a grocery store. For some reason, all the grocery stores are closed on Sundays in Switzerland (and many European countries) except for the Coop at the train station. We got a disappointing, overpriced, pre-made salad and then went off to explore the Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was cute and quite old, but after Rome, it seemed so new. We saw the highlights: the Zytglogge (clock tower), the Cathedral, and Ursina the Bernese Bear. We also spent about a half hour watching people surf in the river. They dropped their boards off the bridge and then jumped in after. They had tied a massive bungee cord to the bridge and would wait for it to get tight. Then, they would get up on their board and surf towards the bridge. It was very cool.

We realized that our train was leaving soon, so we ran to the station. One of the surfers had told us that Interlaken was a very touristic place and that Thun was much quieter, less packed, and on one of the lakes between which Interlaken sits. Note: Europeans use the word touristic a lot instead of touristy. Touristic supposedly has more neutral connotations, but they seem to use it with an equally negative connotation to touristy. We already had our hostel booked in Interlaken, but we decided to get off the train in Thun to see how it was. In the hour we spent there, we didn’t get to see much, but it was a charming little city/town on the Aare with an overpriced pizza place where we ate dinner.

The Euro finals were that night, so once we dropped our bags off at our hostel in Interlaken, we made our way to a (the?) sports bar in town. For being such a tourist town, Interlaken seemed to be quite lacking in nightlife options. We used our phone calculators to play darts without paying to activate the machine and watched the game. Viva España! We had split one personal pizza for dinner, because we didn’t want to pay for two, but this left us hungry later. We went looking for food with some Americans we met at the bar.

Hostel

View from Hostel

Somehow, we ended up at a Hooters for some good old American food. I got a BLT for 15 francs (a franc is equal to 1.17 US dollars). It felt like a deal. I’ve never been to a Hooters before, but honestly, it was pretty much like any other restaurant. Yes, the waitresses were dressed like “Hooters Girls,” but it didn’t seem to be played up too much. It was a surprisingly normal dining experience. 

The next day, we went hiking in the alps. We bought some trail mix and sandwiches at the train station grocery store, and then took the train to Grindelwald. There, we caught the gondola to Holenstein. That’s where our hike began, at an altitude of 1,529 meters. We hiked to Kleine Scheidegg (2,061m) then up to Lauberhorn (2,394m) then back to Kleine Scheidegg where we caught the train home. In total, we walked 16 miles that day and climbed 268 flights. The alps are absolutely stunning. It was incredible how high we were and yet there was always more up. Close by, we could see Jungfrau, Eiger, and Mönch, all above 3,900m.

That evening, when we got off the train, I wanted to see the lake. Interlaken sits between two lakes and we’d only seen one, so I wanted to see the other. That meant another 45 minutes of walking until we got to our hostel. That would’ve been completely fine, but it started storming shortly after we got off the train. We sought refuge from the rain in an Indian restaurant where I was thoroughly disappointed. Last summer, I enjoyed high quality, low price Indian food in Japan. This Swiss Indian food was about four times as expensive at 36 francs/person and the food was not as good. It did give us some respite from the downpour, but we were still “saturated,” as our Aussie hostel-mate would say, when we got home. 

Back at the hostel, I took a very welcome warm shower, and then we tried to do our laundry. Unfortunately, all the machines were in use, so we put our wet clothes in a plastic bag and decided to wait to get to Munich to clean our clothes. 

So yeah, that was Switzerland! Incredibly beautiful. Incredibly expensive. Next, Germany. Onward.

- Justin Dunn