Month: September 2024

Part of the fun of these travels is finding a city we have never heard of and having it wow us. Today we “found” Bellinzona and it has turned into our favorite town in Switzerland.

It is impertinent to say we found Bellinzona as there has been a town here since neolithic times, and forts here since the Romans. The city is located where three different mountain passes in the Alps converge, so control of the area around the town has always been important.

It’s funny how little things contribute to a town really wowing us. It began with the Ticino Pass. While Switzerland is the most expensive place we have ever traveled in the world we have been impressed with being allowed free access to the city public transit system. The Canton of Ticino takes it one step further and allows you access to all rail and bus systems in the entire Canton. So from our campground in Lugano we have been able to go anywhere within about a 100 kilometer radius. As Ton put it Swiss efficiency with Italian charm. Today when we got to the train station in Lugano Google told us to get on a train that was clearly a cross country train with its final destination in Zurich. I wasn’t sure it was eligible for our Ticino pass so I asked a conductor if it was ok, and he said sure as long as you get off in Bellinzona. So we got to enjoy a very nice, fast and smooth Swiss train for the 18 minutes it took to get from Lugano to Bellinzona.

Bellinzona is not a big town with a population of about 45,000, but it had a very nice main street to walk from the train station to the main square of town. It was very quiet today as the Swiss shut down all of the stores and even many of the restaurants on Sunday. But the street looked prosperous and the architecture of the buildings seemed to us to be a little more interesting than other cities. It may be the Italian influence, or it may have been something intangible.

A lot of the times in smaller cities I put the town hall in to google to get us to the center of the town. Today as we approached the town hall we could here live music. When we arrived we found a local high school band giving a concert in the beautiful three story atrium of the town hall. We arrived near the end of the concert but we were able to enjoy the last 20 minutes or so. They were quite good.

The main attraction that draws tourism to the city are the old fortifications built in the 1400’s by Milan. They are a UNESCO site. This area was fought over many times in the 1400’s as the Swiss tried to take it from Milan.

The Milanese built an extensive series of walls connecting three main castles surrounding the city to try to deny the Swiss from gaining access to the valley that leads to Milan.

We have seen a lot of castles and fortifications in our travels in Europe. But I found the castle and the walls of Bellinzona to be some of the most interesting. Once the borders were settled between Milan (later Italy) and Switzerland around 1500 Bellinzona became a bit of a back water. So it is possible that these fortifications are largely unchanged since then which makes them seem timeless. Also the way the walls and fortifications incorporate the natural granite bluffs and hills is really picturesque.

After climbing up and down the hill to the main fortification and climbing stairs within the towers we stopped and had a very nice lunch of peanut and butter and jelly for me, and an Ovaltine spread sandwich for Ton. Ton has discovered an Ovaltine spread in Switzerland that she really loves.

After lunch we decided to head back to the campground in Lugano. Once again we enjoyed our high speed train ride of 18 minutes to Lugano. We had expected the campground to be pretty empty when we returned as it is Sunday, but it is still quite full with young families enjoying the early days of fall.

Today was a brilliant sunny day so we headed to the place we were most excited about visiting. Morcote is a small village on the lake that is supposed to be the most beautiful in the area.

Our Tichino pass gives access to all public transport in the Canton. We took advantage of it today to get to Morcote. The trip involved 2 trains and a bus, and took about an hour and a half including waits at the transfers.

The bus dropped us at the Piazza Grande in Morcote. We got a giggle when we saw the Grand Plaza as it was about 50 by 50 feet. Grand can be in the eye of the beholder.

Our first stop was the church in town because the views were supposed to be spectacular. You got to the top by climbing a series of narrow staircases between buildings. It was only a few hundred yards to the church, but you gained about 400 feet in elevation so it was a good workout to get there.

The climb was strenuous but the views from the church were worth it. We sat on a bench and enjoyed the views from the church for a few minutes before heading into the church itself.

The interior of the church was nice. There were several older frescoes very similar in style to the ones we saw in Lugano yesterday.

We took a different route down which was labeled a road, but was just a slightly more gentle trail, with less steps. On the way down we came upon a beautiful building with a great view of the lake, we were speculating about the building when we saw a sign that it was the elementary school for the town. The kids that go there probably don’t realize that they have to be attending one of the most beautiful schools in the world.

The trail entered an arch that passed under the elementary school. The arch led to a grotto like room that had a small chapel with a painting depicting purgatory. It was interesting art, but the location under the town elementary school had us perplexed a bit.

When we got to the bottom we headed to a botanical garden in the town. After several false starts we eventually located the entrance to the gardens. The gardens worked themselves up the same hill the church was on so we got to re-climb the hill as we worked our way thru the plants. The gardens were very nice, but not spectacular.

After scaling the steep hill above Morcote twice we decided to head back to Lugano on the bus. When we arrived in Lugano we had to jump off the bus a couple of stops early as a race had just finished up along the main street of town.

What a difference a day makes, the sun was out, and so were the people of Lugano. It is Saturday today and the race had just ended so the downtown was full of people. Ton had read about a little hole in the wall wine bar on a side street, so we headed there with a thought of purchasing a glass of wine, when we got there the “hole in the wall” Ton had read about was a giant cafe with about 30 tables so we passed once again on eating out.

This time we were able to find the little train which saved us another 300 foot elevation climb. On the way back to the campground we again did a little tourism grocery shopping.

While we were gone the campground had filled to near capacity. We went for a walk at sunset and were struck by how few non-Swiss are staying here. Besides our French plate, we saw a single German plate, and all of the rest were Swiss from all over the country. My guess is that all of the foreigners looking for an overnight stop drive the extra 1/2 hour to Italy to avoid Swiss prices.

It rained heavily last night. François is made of a high density plastic so when it rains hard it is quite loud. As I am typing this there is a thunderstorm passing buy and we can no longer here the stereo for the pounding of rain on the roof. But it is not bad for sleeping as it has a kind of white noise effect.

We were up early as the weather forecast was no rain in the morning and thunderstorms after 2pm. We didn’t want to get caught out in a thunderstorm so we were heading into town before 10am.

On the walk to the train station we passed all of the big grocery chains so I new our return to the campground would be delayed by grocery tourism. The train began by climbing up a pretty big hill than ran along a ridge into town. I expected it to drop down into the city, but instead the train station is on the highest point of the town.

As we were leaving the station Ton said to me “going down is the easy part. I responded maybe there is a bus back up. A lady passing us heard the conversation and pointed at a funicular on tracks next to us and said “Make sure you take the little train back, it is important.” We thanked her for her advice.

Swiss cities are universally clean and orderly, and feel solidly middle class. They are not the kind of cities that wow you with there architecture or atmosphere, but the kind of places that feel like they would be very comfortable to live in.

The cities don’t need to be spectacular because mother nature takes care of the spectacular with lakes and mountains and giant skies that haven’t ceased to impress us. We were drawn to the lake again to walk the waterfront and admire the views across the lake.

We wandered the town for a couple of hours and enjoyed ourselves. Tons fascination with Swiss McDonald’s led us to head there to try to get a Toblerone McFlurry, but unfortunately they are seasonal and not available today.

We did peak into the first catholic church we have seen in Switzerland. It had a lot of old frescoes that we enjoyed and an interesting design that included a wall that split the congregation of the church in half, with an immense fresco on it.

It was getting time to head back to beat the thunderstorms. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the funicular back up the hill to the train station so we had to climb back up the hill to the train.

As expected we did a little grocery tourism on the way back to the campground. I was surprised when we returned to the campground as we had wandered thru Lugano much more than we thought, to the tune of about 7 miles according to my fitbit.

It rained all night so our decision to head south towards Italy was confirmed. Today was going to be our longest drive in Switzerland so I checked the weather before we left. The local forecast in Interlaken was grim with heavy rain forecast and flood warnings, but while it was raining at our destination it was supposed to be lighter.

Our route planning has not been the best for Switzerland, so we began the day by doubling back on the route we took yesterday towards Lucerne. Ton was a little concerned about rain as we had about 50 kilometers of mountain driving to do.

Fortunately the heavy rain that was predicted held off all of the way to Lucerne. The drive was no more treacherous than yesterday and we again enjoyed the views in the mountains, and while the roads were twisty and steep they were not particularly scary.

After we passed thru Lucerne and got on the freeway heading towards Lugano Greta said the next turn was 150 kilometers so I thought we were over the worst as we had no more mountain roads on the trip, just freeway. We have passed thru several long tunnels in Switzerland, one was 5 kilometers (3ish miles), and another 9 (5.5ish), but on this trip we hit our longest tunnel ever.

Near the town of Gotthard the road narrowed to one lane and we entered the Gotthard tunnel. This tunnel is 17 kilometers long (11ish miles). We were in the middle of a long line of traffic so I just stuck to the rear of the car in front of us. The most interesting thing is the air temperature in the tunnel was over 80 degrees when the temperature outside was around 60. When we entered the tunnel we had the heater going in the car, by the time we exited we were thinking about AC.

As we exited the tunnel we were entering the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. The weather here was supposed to be light rain. It was pouring and there was heavy fog for awhile. So the weather was opposite of what was forecast.

We arrived at the campground and a very helpful and friendly person checked us in. She explained our options for visits around town, but ended it by saying “but today you should just stay in your motorhome as it is pretty miserable outside.” We followed her advise and spent the afternoon taking care of some correspondence and watching movies.

We wanted to visit Interlaken before heading south towards Italy. It is a very popular destination for Swiss to vacation at, in most of the cities we have visited it was very easy to decide where to stay as there was only one campground. In Interlaken there were six to pick from. I picked one that looked promising punched into Greta Garmin and we were off bright and early.

The roads in Switzerland have been almost boring. They are fast and easy to drive with speed limits between 80 kph and 100 kph. Today for the first time we had to take on some mountain roads. Our trip was only 78 kilometers but it took about 2 hours. It wasn’t tough driving as the roads are wide, but for the first time we were going over some of the mountains instead of thru them. While it slowed us down the scenery was stunning.

We had left pretty early so we arrived at Interlaken before 11am. When we pulled into the campground we saw why this place is so popular with the Swiss.

Based on our first impression we would certainly have booked at least two days to explore the area, but when we checked in the owner of the campground confirmed what we knew driving over. After today it is supposed to rain hard for the next three days.

After a quick lunch we were off to the bus stop to head to town. As we were walking we noticed the sky was full of Para-Gliders. At one point we counted 16 in the air at one time. Our wait for the bus was quite entertaining as the field across from the bus stop was one of the landing areas for the Para-Gliders.

Interlaken is on a peninsula of land that is in between two major alpine lakes. The Aarl river cuts thru the town and joins the two lakes so it is a pretty scenic place for a town. The only industry seems to be tourism and the town was full of hotels ranging from youth hostels to hotels catering to the rich and famous.

We followed the river down to one of the two lakes. As we walked along the river we passed a cruise boat going out on an excursion. It was a typical cruise boat but for some reason it had a person dressed up in a mascot outfit like you see at baseball or football games on board.

The walk from the town was about a kilometer and a half, but as we got further from downtown fewer and fewer people were on the path. It looks like most people in town see the lake by boat.

By the time we got to the lake there were only about 6 people actually at the lake front. So we found a bench and sat down and enjoyed the view for a while. We decided to wimp out and I consulted Google maps and found a bus stop nearby to get us back to the town center.

We wandered the town for another half hour trying to find a couple of souvenirs but struck out. We had one chore to accomplish which was to swing by the local RV dealer to pick up some tabs for our chemical toilet. With that accomplished we headed back to the campground.

We took a different route back to the campground which had us on a trail thru some farms. We saw another flock of para-gliders and since Ton enjoys cows we admired the very healthy and content looking Swiss cows in the fields.

Our original plan was to take a short break and then walk to the other lake. But once we got back to François we got comfortable and since the view was so good from our campsite we decided we would just relax and enjoy the view.

We planned our day around the weather forecast. The forecast has been changing frequently and sometimes dramatically over the last few days. But when we woke up it said that it was going to be good in the morning and raining by 4 pm. So we were off for town pretty early.

We started the day at the wooden bridge that is one of Lucernes’ tourist highlights. When we went by on Sunday it was teeming with people so we passed on walking across it. Today was much quieter so we enjoyed crossing it. In addition to the pretty exterior there are paintings from the history of Lucerne in the cross beams of the roof. Many of these paintings were destroyed in the fire in 1994, but some were saved and luckily when the bridge was shortened in the late 1800’s some one had the foresight to put the paintings that were removed in storage so those were used to replace some of the missing ones.

Ton had done some research on the town and one of the articles she read talked about the Lombard street (the famous winding street in San Francisco) of Lucerne so we headed up there next. It was a nice walk thru a pleasant neighborhood but while the street was steep and there was one sweeping curve it was not Lombard street.

After our climb up to “Lombard Street” we headed over to another street that was supposed to have good wall paintings. Again the walk over was very pleasant thru nice neighborhoods. We really enjoyed ourselves. When we got to the neighborhood there was a row of very tastefully painted houses and one large mural on one wall. I was a little disappointed, but Ton really enjoyed the street and took several photos. So once again I learned something about perspective.

Our primary stop for the day is a place we would not have found without unlimited access to the bus system that comes with our tourist tax. Ton read that if you ride bus 10 to the last stop you get out at a beautiful park with stunning views of the city and lake.

So we were off to the train station to pick up bus 10. After a 10 minute ride up hill on narrow streets we arrived at the last stop on a dead end road. When we got off we were impressed. Behind us was a typical city street lined with houses. In front of us was green grass stretching off for a couple of miles. In the distance we could hear cow bells from a herd of cows on the hill a half mile away. It was quite a contrast.

There were a series of hiking trails radiating from the bus stop. Switzerland has an extensive hiking trail system with well marked trails signposted at key intersections in the trail. If we were a bit younger we might take on more of them. We opted for a short walk down one of the trails until we got to a point where we had an overlook of the city, lake and mountains. There was a bench there and we just sat and enjoyed the view.

It looked like rain was coming so we decided to head back to town. We hopped off the bus in the new town and had another discussion about eating a lunch out, but once again decided today was not the day. With the clouds threatening we decided to head back to the campground.

By the time we got back to the campground the sun was out and any thought of rain was over. So after a late lunch and some time on the phone with home we walked back to the lake to enjoy sunset. It was the nicest sunset we have seen here.

It was supposed to be a rainy day today. When we woke up we looked outside and decided it would be a good day to take care of stuff, so we added a day to our reservation and headed off to stock up on groceries as our first chore.

On the way to the grocery we passed by the Swiss Transportation museum. It is a very large museum full of interesting looking trains, gondolas, and road building equipment.

When we arrived at the Migro grocery store Ton really struggled to find anything that she could bring herself to buy because of the cost. She walked thru the Migro a couple of times and after two trips we had one package of schnitzel and a box of pizzas, and no fresh vegetables which is why we came . Luckily right next to the Migro was another grocery store that we had not heard of but turned out to be a discount grocery. Ton was much happier and we ended up with enough food to get us to Italy including fresh vegetables.

The rest of the day was spent washing our clothes, and doing some light cleaning. These days are necessary and also give us a rest day. Our primary entertainment was to watch our neighbors come and go which is always good fun in a RV park.

Earlier in the trip I was complaining about having to pay €48 for an annual vignette for Switzerland. I felt like there should have been a shorter term vignette available. But after spending a few days transiting the excellent highways here I have changed my tune and now feel €48 is a good deal. Our travels in Switzerland have not been the most efficient. If you look at a map you will see what I mean, but a combination of a small country and good roads has made our spur of the moment routing acceptable.

Our destination today was Lucerne which is about 200 kilometers from Lusanne nearly across Switzerland. The drive involved doubling back by Berne and going almost to Zurich before heading south to Lucerne. But the roads are really good in Switzerland and surprisingly flat given the mountains because of all of the tunnels and elevated stretches of roads.

After we settled in at the campground we took the advice of the check in person and walked the lake front trail to the town. It is a nice walk, and as the weather is good a lot of the citizens of Lucerne were out there with us.

As we were passing by a really posh hotel we saw a couple of sculptures that caught our eye. We had a running joke in Lusanne about the ugly sculptures throughout the city, but these were very interesting and really appealed to us.

The statues from 50 feet away or so looked like normal stone or metal figures. But as you got closer they changed look.

As you get close to the system you see that it is not a single block of metal but hundreds of thin pieces of metal arranged to give form to the statue.

This was one of the most interesting pieces of art we have seen in a while. We looked at the biography of the artist and his name is Juliene Voss-Andreae who is originally from Hamburg Germany but now resides in Portland Oregon. We have never seen any of his art or heard of him in Portland. We are glad we traveled to Lucerne to find a really interesting artist from our hometown!

One of the advantages that Swiss cities have over most of Europe as they missed all of the major wars for the last two hundred years so a lot of buildings have survived in their original form. Lucerne has an old wooden bridge that survived intact. Unfortunately it caught fire in 1993 and about 60% of it burned down, but they were able to rebuild it pretty quickly. We were going to walk across it but it was teeming so we decided to leave it for tomorrow.

Our final stop for the day was the Lions Monument. The Swiss have not been involved in any major wars since the 1600’s, but apparently they had a reputation as fighters in the 1700’s and Swiss mercenaries were in high demand. The Pope still has his Swiss guard in the Vatican. Louis XVI of Versailles fame also had a personal guard of Swiss mercenaries. When the mob came to seize him the Swiss guard fought to the last man to defend him. Unfortunately for Louis they were overpowered and the rest is history. The Lions monument commemorates their bravery and loyalty.

As we were walking to the bus stop to head back to the camp we came across a nice church that was on Tons list. We swung in for some photos, but our plan is to head back into town either tomorrow or the day after depending on whose weather app is right. Ton uses one weather app for forecasts and I use a different one. They usually agree, but for tomorrow they completely disagree, Tons says it is going to be mostly cloudy with some sun, mine says there is a 98% chance of rain all day. We will find out who is right in the morning.

We decided to return to the Olympic Museum to tour the museum itself. Our friend Tracey spoke highly of it and said that our free transit pass also got us a discount to the museum. So after a lazy start to the day while we waited for the temperature to warm up a bit we were off to the museum.

When we arrived at the museum we did get a discount for our pass, but the guy selling tickets asked how old we were, and it turned out we got a bigger discount for being old, so we accepted it. The museum was very well done with a nice mix of audiovisual displays and artifacts from all of the Olympic games.

We both enjoyed the displays that talked about the original Greek games, and the story of the founding of the modern Olympics in the 1890’s. The games have certainly come a long way as a spectacle.

Ton wanted to check out three other places in the city center, so after the Olympic Museum we headed to the metro and took a quick ride to the center. After visiting the town yesterday I began to suspect that what we thought was a very unimpressive cathedral was actually a very large church. It turns out I was right and the actual Cathedral was much more impressive. We liked the interior arches in this church, and a couple of the stain glass windows were interesting.

Lausanne is also famous for a covered stair case that runs from the main city to the Cathedral. As an extremely hilly town in a mountainous environment the covered staircase comes in handy when the roads are slick with snow and ice. It was located right next to the cathedral and ran for a couple of hundred meters.

Our third stop was at a coffee shop that served a typical Lausanne hot chocolate. Ton likes to try hot chocolate so I was using google to get us to the coffee shop. Google finally told us were at the coffee shop, but there was no coffee shop in sight. I tried resetting the search but got the same answer. I then noticed that the Escaliers kind of went down in a shaft next to us, so I went down the stairs and sure enough we had been standing on top of the shop. The chocolate was good, and I enjoyed my local wine.

As we were heading back to the campground we came across a crowd on one of the main streets looking up at a building. The crowd even included 4 firefighters who had stopped their truck to get a view. Many European cities have clocks that tell the story of some important event using figurines, these go off at certain times of the day. In this case it seemed to be a battle won by the town as it included a line of soldiers followed by some dancers in fancy dress. We laughed and said it was not as famous as the one in Prague (considered one of the most over rated tourist attractions in Europe), but at least as good, maybe better.

It’s no secret that Ton and I love a good wine region. Next to Lausanne is a Swiss wine region that has an extensive series of trails that allow for hiking thru the vineyards. So once we got going in the morning we were off to check out the Lavaux wine region.

Wine has been grown in the region since the Romans, but the hills that the Lavaux wine area are on now first started producing grapes for wine in the 11th century. The vineyards are now protected from development by law and have been designated a UNESCO site

The primary wine produced is called Chasselas and is a white wine. They also produce some Gamay and Pinot Noir wine.

As part of the UNESCO designation there is an extensive network of trails that run for many miles thru the region. These trails are really well marked and developed. It is possible to go on hikes up to 15 miles thru the vineyards. We weren’t that ambitious and I found a nice 2 mile hike that started at a small train station at the top of the hill and ended at another train station next to Lake Geneva.

The hike was really beautiful and quiet. We almost had the trails to ourselves. Ton was immersed in taking pictures and I got to spend my time quietly taking in the immensity of the views across Lake Geneva towards the French Alps. I was also intrigued with some of the equipment they used to tend the vines on these really steep hills.

We finished up our hike/stroll (2 miles probably is pushing the term hike) around 1:30 and since the train was going to the center of Lausanne we decided to get off and give the old town a look.

As we have been driving in Switzerland we keep seeing advertisements for a limited time 1955 burger at McDonald’s. At first when we saw the signs we were wondering what the 1955 was referring to, was it the price (don’t laugh we are in Switzerland), the year 1955, but if it is the year 1955 what is the significance of that year to McDonald’s, or was it something else entirely. Each time we saw the advertisement the speculation would be rekindled. Finally Ton couldn’t resist and googled the meaning of the 1955 burger and it turns out it is a special burger only released periodically in Europe and parts of Asia. She also read me the ingredients that made it unique and “special”. So today as we were leaving the train station there was a McDonald’s and Ton proposed we split a 1955 burger, Ton usually won’t even consider eating fast food so I was surprised. So my congratulations to the marketing firm for McDonald’s in Switzerland because you lured in a customer who would not have considered eating in a McDonald’s before being caught up in the web of your advertisement. By the way the burger was pretty good.

We walked around downtown a little aimlessly for about 45 minutes, it is nice but not particularly memorable except for the steepness of the roads. Having taken in enough to satisfy our curiosity we decided to head back to François for the evening.

Lausanne was always going to be a highlight of our visit to Switzerland for Ton. The late king of Thailand King Rama IX lived here for 18 years when he was a boy. Rama IX was born in Boston while his father was studying medicine and his mother was studying to be a nurse. When he was an infant the family moved to Lausanne. It is a long story as he was not the crown prince but the younger brother of the crown prince. He only came to the throne due to the accidental death of his older brother right after he became king. Rama IX was king for over 70 years and is still beloved today by the Thai people. On the 60th anniversary of his reign the Thai government built a memorial in Lausanne in thanks to the city for the years he spent here when he was young. It was our first stop in Lausanne.

The Thai Pavilion faces lake Geneva, so after we finished our visit we started walking along the Lake Front. The views across Lake Geneva are beautiful, though today they were a little spoiled by a pretty thick haze.

Lausanne is also the home of the International Olympic Committee. As we were walking down the waterfront we saw a museum dedicated to the Olympics. We crossed the road to take a look. The grounds had a display primarily centered around the Paris Olympics. I didn’t know that this year was the third time Paris had hosted the Olympics, so the historical facts about the previous two were interesting to me. The main museum has an entrance fee so we passed today as it was getting late, but may return later.

By the time we had visited the grounds of the Olympic Museum it was late enough to head back to François for dinner. Once again we have full access to the local transit system thanks to the Swiss tourist tax, and we plan to take full advantage of it.

After dinner we decided to head back to the Lake for a sunset walk. Right outside the campground is a trail along the lake shore. I was a little surprised how busy it was with people running, there were also several groups out rowing along the lake and in the distance there were 8 or 10 sailboats out for an evening sail.

While all of the haze had not cleared it was much better than this afternoon and Ton was in her element taking photos. This time I was following her as she darted from the trail down to the shoreline, on to piers, and thru the grounds of the yacht club. She really enjoyed her walk as did I.

We both decided that Lausanne seems to be a place we are going to enjoy and are wondering if three days are going to be enough.

We headed into Bern in the morning to finish exploring the city. A short walk and we were at a tram stop that took us to the city center in 10 minutes. Having the free use of the city transit system as part of the tourism tax for the campground struck us a great idea that should be emulated other places. It allowed us to explore several parts of the city we would not have gotten to otherwise.

I guess I never new what city was the capitol of Switzerland, but if you would have asked me I would have guessed it was Zurich or Geneva. It turns out it is Bern. So I was a little embarrassed by my ignorance when we visited the parliament grounds for our first stop of the day.

We were heading up the market street towards the train station when we saw a Thai tour group taking a group photo in front of the town clock. Ton overheard the guide telling them to wait a few minutes as they were too early. We thought it was for their bus, it turns out they were waiting for the noon performance of the town clock where dancing figures come out. We heard a commotion, but by the time we hustled back it was too late and we had missed out.

We wanted to visit a local brewery and settled on Felsenau Beer. They had three locations in town, but we wanted to visit the main brewery. I put what I thought was the location in google maps, and we were off looking for Bus 21. The first problem was I couldn’t locate the bus stop. The place I thought was the bus stop was across the street from the actual bus stop and I didn’t realize it until the bus stopped across the street and then did a u-turn right in front of us to head off. So we caught the next bus, and rode it to the stop google told us in the suburbs of Bern. We got of in Felsenau, and google indicated that the brewery should be right in front of us, but I didn’t see it. I was frustrated, but figured I had done something wrong. So we headed right back to where we started where we found the down town Felsenau Brew Pub. It turns out that we were only about 100 yards from the brewery when we got off the bus but I somehow missed it. It made me feel like a rookie traveler. But we did get to taste some Felsenau beer and it was pretty good, but cost a whopping 12 US dollars each. Things are expensive in Switzerland.

Our main destination for the day was the rose garden of the city. The views of the city were supposed to be tremendous. The problem was that the town was pretty socked in with clouds and Ton wanted sun for her photos. The weather forecast said the sun was supposed to come out around 1pm. By 2:30 it had not come out and we were thinking about giving up. But at 3 the sun arrived so we decided to head up to the rose garden. It took me a couple of attempts to find the right bus stop again (not a good day for me as transit guide), but fortunately the busses run frequently here.

The rose garden did have beautiful views of the city, and was definitely worth the wait. The roses are at the end of our run as it is mid-September, but we enjoyed the views and did take in some of the roses. I think even when the roses are at their peak the views may be the real attraction here.

After the rose garden we headed back to the campground to relax as it had been a long day walking around Bern.

We had arrived in Switzerland with a list of potential places to visit, but no plan on how to visit them. So while it rained outside yesterday I began to punch different places into google maps, it turns out everything is about 100 kilometers from everywhere else, so after looking at some options we decided there was no particular order that made more sense than another, and we could kind of wing the rest of the time we spend in Switzerland.

We decided to head to Bern today because it had a nice campground in the middle of the city and its old town is a UNESCO site. It rained steadily all night and when we woke up in the morning the valley that St. Ursanne is located in was pretty socked in with fog. It was only 106 kilometers to Bern so we were not in a big hurry to get going, but despite dragging our feet as much as we could we were still on the road by 10:00.

The roads are very good in Switzerland with lots of tunnels to keep you from doing a lot of elevation changes. Today they were all limited access though often only one lane, but traffic was light. So despite the rain we found ourselves arriving at the campground in Bern at 11:30. The only drama was we followed a VW camper from Scotland the last kilometer or so into the campground. When they arrived there the people at the campground asked them to move back. As they were backing up it became clear to me they could not see a sign directly in their rear, when they got a foot or so from hitting it I leaned on my horn, they stopped a couple of inches short of the sign, and an irritated Scottish voice shouted over to me “what are you blowing your horn for”, I asked if they saw the sign 2 inches from their rear end, she looked startled and then pulled forward a bit.

After we settled in, we decided to take a stroll along the river. After walking a quarter mile or so I told Ton we could be in the center of the city in 15 minutes if we took a bus nearby. While the campgrounds in Switzerland are extremely expensive, in urban areas they come with free usage of the local transit system. So since the bus ride was free we decided to check out the center of town despite the weather not being great for photographs.

We spent the next couple of hours strolling down the main street of the town. We accidentally found the bear pen where the mascots of the city are kept near the river. Two of the bears were hiding, but one was nice enough to take his nap in the open for the tourists.

After looking at the sleeping bear for a couple of minutes we noticed a beer hall next door and got a beer. The beer hall was full of British accents and we were a little perplexed until we figured out that an English Premier League soccer team was in town to play the local Swiss team in the European Champions League.

After our beer we took advantage of our free transit pass to head back to François for the night. When we returned we bumped into the Scottish lady who had snapped at us earlier in the day, she thanked us profusely as they had not seen the sign and would have hit it if I hadn’t blown my horn at them.