Bern Bears and Basel Paper

Phillip and I are currently in Lupberg, Germany, spending the weekend with Phillip's niece, Becky, and her family. Wednesday and Thursday were our final days in Switzerland before riding three trains yesterday to get here.

We left Lausanne Wednesday morning and were in Bern by 10:30 am. Bern is the capitol of Switzerland and its Alstadt (Old Town) is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We didn't get any crepes in France, so soon after we got off the train, when we saw a creperie, we split a Nutella crepe. Her crepe pan was much larger than mine at home and of course her crepe tasted better!

One of the characteristic features of Bern is its collection of over 100 public fountains. Eleven of them are crowned with Renaissance allegorical statues. Thee most famous one is the ogre fountain, the Kindlifresserbrunnen. The fountain was built in 1545-46 and is of a seated giant swallowing a child.

These fountains were originally built as a public water supply. As Bern grew, the original fountains were expanded and decorated but still serve as a water source. We regularly refilled my water bottle from these.

Clock towers are also important to Bern's history. A time bell was one of the earliest public timekeeping devices. The clock connected to a hammer that rang a small bell on the hour. One in Bern is 900 years old.

The mascot for Bern is a bear. The City of Bern owns three bears, kept next to the Aare River. The association of Bern with bears began in the 1200s when the Duke of the area named the town after the bears that were in the wild in the area. During medival times, the Bernaisse fighters used the bear as their symbol for ferociousness in battle. In 1513, someone captured a bear and the City decided to keep it, so the City has had bears for quite a long time.

 As you can imagine, the conditions the town bear (now 3 bears) lived in have improved over the years. They currently have a 6000 square meter enclosure with access to the Aare River. We were on the nearby bridge to take these pictures, so the bears aren't bothered at all now by the toursts.

Bern is built on both sides of the Aare River. Although the streets sloped toward the river, it was much easier to walk in Bern than it had been in Lausanne.  This is the view of the river from the other side of the bridge that we were on to get our pictures of the Bern bears.

Another of the many public fountains. If you look at the feet of this soldier, you can see a bear holding a musket to fight also!

These are some of the higher Alps Mountains, in the Berner Oberland range and visible from the patio behind the Federal Palace.







Phillip and I caught the 6 pm train from Bern to Basel on Wednesday evening, spending that night and the next in Basel, Switzerland. Basel is on the border with Germany. Thursday, we walked around Basel and went to the Papermill Museum, with its interactive exhibits, and rode the cable ferry across the Rhine river.

Fountains were everywhere in Basle, but not with the allegorical statues. They were more of this type, with the (drinkable) water coming from a part of the statue.

The cathedral we passed while walking had the decorative downspouts that I love. This one didn't have the stained glass windows like the one in Lausanne.

This building was unique in Basel because of its color. Most of the buildings, although decorated, were of light colored sone, This was on the Marktplatz, an open air market with vendors.

After the Marktplatz, we walked to the Rhine River, then along a path next to the river. We walked across the bridge in the picture in the afternoon, after we rode the ferry to that other side of Basel.

 The Basel Papermill Museum is at the location of the papermill that was founded in 1433. By the 1500s, Basel was the leading papermaing center for Switzerland. Here, I've dipped the mold into the vat of fibers and am letting the water drain off. I'll tip the paper onto the piece of felt to my right.

Phillip is pressing water out of the paper we made. He's using a hand press, but the museum had the huge presses that were actually used.

This is the oldest surviving paer press, a double press from the 15th century.

After we learned about making people, the museum described writing on it. Phillip is trying to use a quill pen, much more difficult than today's ink pens.

One floor of the museum was dedicated to linotypes and other typesetting machines. They also had displays of old typewriters. There was a demo area for the old manual typewriters, but three teenage boys were busy using it, having fun as their smartphone fingers tried to push the keys of the huge typewriter.

Four cable ferries operate in Basel to carry people across the Rhine River.  This dog hopped off the ferry when it arrived to our side. The dog then tritted up the steps and down the path. It didn't seem to belong to one of the passengers, it just was a passenger!

The front of the ferry is attached to a cable stretching across the river. The operator uses a rudder to direct the rear of the boat and the current push the ferry cross the river. No motor at all.

On our way back to the hotel, we saw this fountain and I took a picture of the intricate carving and water works on the lower half of it.








Today, we are going to a football game and then to Regensberg (UNESCO World Heritage site). Becky's son, Ryan, is the quarterback of his team, and it will be American football, not soccer, on the Army base. My camera is charged today, so I'll have pictures of family, food, and football for the next post.

Lausanne and Lake Geneva, Switzerland

For the past two days, Phillip and I have been in Lausanne, Switzerland, home of the Olympic headquarters and a beautiful city on Lake Geneva. Yesterday, we walked in the old city, up the hill from our hotel, and today we walked along Lake Geneva and visited the Olympic Museum, down the hill from our hotel. I say hill, but it is actually the side of the mountain. My guidebook described Lausanne as a "vertical city" and that is true... I found that Google maps for Lausanne are 2-D images for a 3-D city.

I took over 350 pictures during the past two days, so I'll just be captioning the pictures to describe our adventures. The Lausanne Cathedral with its stained glass and Lausanne cityscapes were yesterday. Lake Geneva, the Olympic Museum, and the Alps across Lake Geneva were today.

The stairs that were the one block "street" from the train station to our hotel. That's Phillip at the top, doing his Rocky Balboa impersonation.

Google maps told me to turn left here. It thought I was on the street below us.

We were on a sidewalk, not a bridge, when we took this picture.

Statue of William Tell. The story of him shooting the apple off his son's head to save their lives is a Swiss legend. 

Gargoyles on the Lausanne cathedral. I love these things! 

Stained glass of the cathedral. This one represents the consecration of the cathedral in 1275.

The cathedral became a protestant cathedral in 1536, during the Reformation. Most of the glass and artwork is a restoration done in the ealy 1900's, as the protestants covered and removed most of the original artwork. This portion, however, is original.

The cathedral's pipe organ was replaced in 2003 with a new one. These are its 7000 pipes, suspended over the church entry.

Another of the many stained glass windows

The outside of the cathedral had intricate work also

This is another "street" we used, this time downhill to get to our hotel from the old town.

Exit from a Metro station. The top of the station was also planted with greenery. This is a wall of plants.

Ouchy is the port neighborhood of Lausanne on Lake Geneva. We walked almost directly downhill from our hotel to reach this point.

We think this rotates to show wind direction for the many boats in the Ouchy harbor.

One of our many pictures of the Alps as we walked along the paved path that circles this part of Lake Geneva. Lake Geneva is the largest alpine lake in Europe, fed by the Rhone River.

The top of the Alp mountains are visible above the clouds in the distance.

The Olympic Museum is in Lausanne because the Olympic Committee headquarters were moved here from Paris during World War I. 

The Olympics were originally in Greece, starting sometime before 776 BC. Every four years, athletes would compete in Athens, believed to be part of the festivals and cult of Zeus at the time. The games were abolished by the Greek emperor in 393 AD because he thought they spread paganism. They weren't revived until a French baron, Pierre de Coubertin, was able to get them started again in 1896. 

In addition to the Olympic timeline and stories, the museum contained one of all the modern day Olympic torches, arranged in order in a display. 

Rooms of actual uniforms and equipment used by the athletes, labeled with the year, sport, and athlete.

Medals for each year were also on display. The Summer Olympic medals are required to be made a certain way, but no such restrictions are on the Winter Olympic medals, so some of them were unusual and intricate in design.

The museum had three floors and on the final floor, some of the displays were interactive and allowed the guests to test their balance and speed. The museum also displayed many of the posters, created by regular people, that were used for the Olympics. This was my favorite one.

After the Olympic Museum, we continued walking east, taking pictures of the Alps in the distance.

And sometimes, we'd sit and rest. We walked about four miles around Lake Geneva, just a fraction of its 45 mile length. We rode the train back to Lausanne when we'd walked as far as we wanted.

Lots of birds, ducks, and geese. A few people on our walk were feeding them bits of bread.

Frequently, small steams would feed into the lake and these streams would be full of diving ducks.

Phillip on the left. He's watching a dog swimming out after a stick that the lady threw for him. 

My main reason for walking east instead of west along Lake Geneva. These are the Lavaux Vineyard Terraces, a UNESCO World Heritage site. They stretch about 30 km on this side of the lake.  The vineyards trace back to the 11th century when Benedictine and Cistercian monastaries controlled the area. We didn't walk up the mountain to get a closer look, as this was the terminus of our walk. 

Our final picture of the Alps. We could actually see more mountains than when we had started. 

Tomorrow, we leave Lausanne in the morning and travel to Bern to spend the day. We catch a train in the evening from Bern to Basel where we will spend two nights before heading out of Switzerland to Germany on Friday.