Bern and Interlaken, Switzerland

Switzerland's amazing rail network allows you to spend hours gazing at lush Springtime pastures and snow capped peaks whilst lazing in the comfort of a climate controlled, perfectly spotless carriage. Our four day Swiss Rail Adventure in May kicked off from Zurich, involved many stops at historic cities (Bern, Lucerne, Chur) and two border crossings - Italy (Tirano) and Liechtenstein (Vaduz). We used the Swiss Pass to its full potential as evidenced by the following three blogs worth of travel photos.

Day 1 
London to Zurich

Our travel adventures started off with an early morning minicab ride to Gatwick Airport. Mei had foolishly decided to head out for drinks the night before and was woken by Olie at 3am with a reminder that she still needed to pack her bags, After breakfast at McDonalds with our standard pre-flight sausage McMuffin value meal, we were on our way to Zurich for the second time (the first trip was in August 2012 as part of Mei's birthday rail holiday), arriving just after 10am local time.

Swiss Pass

With all the frantic morning packing, we only just remembered to take the Swiss Pass ticket that had been pinned to the corkboard in the kitchen. We had purchased the ticket from the Swiss Travel Center - Mei had met representatives from this agency at a travel show at Earl's Court earlier in the year. Based on our preliminary itinerary they advised purchasing the four day Swiss Pass rather than point-to-point tickets. The Swiss Pass offers unlimited rail travel and is also valid on some ferry/bus services. This gave us flexibility when we wanted to make impromptu stops to check out small towns along the way. The Pass arrived with a map of the Swiss Travel System and instructions for validating its use including writing your name (and other passenger's name) and start / end date onto the ticket. The Pass comes with a plastic pocket to keep it safe and dry as it must be produced on request by the inspectors on every train journey.

Stop 1 - Bern

Zurich Airport has a train station in the basement with a direct connection to Bern (Bahnhof Bern) the capital city of Switzerland. Bern has a beautiful historic Old Town that is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On arrival at the station, we located the luggage lockers for our backpacks and picked up a take-away lunch from the Migros (a supermarket chain). Checking the big printed departure timetables on the platforms, we had about three hours of sightseeing before our train connection to Interlaken.

Buildings in the Old Town

Fountain with the flag of Bern

Parliament Square (Bundesplatz)

The Old Town is easily accessible by foot from the train station. Bern also has a tram line that runs through the main streets, so it pays to look before you cross the road in case one comes charging around the corner. Passing by rows of cafes along Barenplatz, our first stop was Parliament Square - a hang-out for people lazing around in the sunshine. 

Parliament Building

A restaurant near the Parliament Square

The Lion head fountain

Flowers decorating the fountain

Federal Terrace (Bundesterrasse)

We located our next sightseeing stop by following other tourists through the Parliament Building and onto a panoramic terrace that provided great views over the River Aare. Many people were perching themselves on the terrace walls, however we decided to stand back from the edge as it was a long way down if you lost your balance.

Tram crossing over the river

Rooftop garden

Zytglogge
The Zytglogge is a large medieval clock and tower, one of the icons of Bern. The clock contains a number of decorations, putting on a show when it strikes the hour. We queued with a small group of tourists waiting patiently for the one o'clock chime. This annoyed several taxi and delivery vans as we were blocking the street. The chime took place and was fairly underwhelming. Note to self, that if you are going to wait for a clock to chime, it is best to go at noon as the action will last longer than 1pm.

Zytglogge

The clock-face

Public Fountains

In medieval times, the fountains in Bern provided the city's residents with a source of water. Now their decorated statues are photographed extensively by tourists whilst walking down the Kramgasse.

Zähringer fountain

This statue of a bear in full armour was built in 1535 as a memorial to the founder of Bern - Berchtold von Zahringer who according to legend, hunted a bear when he was looking for a site to build a city.

Simsonbrunnen (Samson fountain)

This fountain represents the story of Samson killing the lion.

Einsteinhaus (Einstein House) 
At No.49 Kramgasse, the Einstein House is a museum and former residence of Albert Einstein - one of Bern's famous residents.

Window at Einsteinhaus

Rathaus (City Hall)
In many European cities, the City Hall is usually a very decorated and prominent building in the centre of town. The Bern Rathaus seemed more discrete, tucked away in a small square behind the main pedestrian shopping boulevard.

Front of the City Hall

Church next to the City Hall

Nydeggbrucke

The city of Bern is shaped as a peninsula surrounded by the Aare River. One of the pedestrian bridges is the Nydeggbrucke, crossing the river near the boat rental place and is opposite the Untertorbrucke, an older stone arch bridge that dates back to the 1400's.

View of Untertorbrucke from the Nydeggbrucke

Barengraben

The Barengraben (Bear Pit) is located at the end of the Nydeggbrucke is home to brown bears, another symbol of Bern.

Brown bear at Barengraben

Rosengarten 

The Rose Garden is a popular tourist attraction accessible by bus or via a steep climb up the hill. The view over Bern's Old Town and Munster (Cathedral) is worth the effort.

View from the Rosengarten

Stop 2 - Thun

There was no extensive rest stop for us to enjoy in Bern, as we soon headed back at the train station to pick up our bags. The freedom of the Swiss Pass allowed us to stop off at the small city of Thun, at the edge of Lake Thun (Thunersee).

On arrival, the early morning start was catching up with Olie and after we exited the train station he decided that he was too tired to walk around any further and offered to sit by the lake and watch the bags whilst Mei went to explore.

The lake where Olie waited

Thun is quite small and one of the main attractions is Thun castle. Visible from the station, Mei decided to head there, passing some pretty old buildings, decorative shop signs and scenery along the way.

Wooden bridge crossing the river

Buildings of Thun

Thun Castle

Covered walkway from the castle

Painting inside the walkway

Stop 3 - Interlaken

Interlaken is located on the strip of land between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz. The town is a popular tourist destination with a very long commercial main street selling jewellery and hang-gliding tours. 

At the hang gliding landing spot

Beautiful view of the mountains

Japanese garden, celebrating the twin town of Otsu, Japan

Interlaken Casino

Our train arrived at Interlaken West station and our accommodation - Chalet Swiss Hotel was a few blocks away, located in the quieter old part of town.

Interlaken West train station

Chalet Swiss Hotel

The goats at a plant nursery near the hotel

Goldener Anker Restaurant

The day's sightseeing had made us pretty hungry and for dinner we stopped off at the Golden Anker restaurant where we ordered cheese fondue - eating quickly to avoid it solidifying and a tasty lamb cutlet dish.

Before sunset, we continued walking around the Old Town area, taking more photos of this very picturesque alpine town.

**Connect With Us**

This post was written by: Culture Stamps
If you liked this post, please share it with others using the social media buttons below.
To connect with us and see snippets of our Culture Stamp travel adventures:

• Follow Culture Stamps on Twitter 
• LIKE our Culture Stamps Page on Facebook