After spending a morning at the medieval walled town of Murten, we reached our second UNESCO World Heritage Site in one day as we moved our homebase to the de facto Swiss capital of Bern, the only major city of our 16-day journey.
Friends have pointed out our tendency of omitting cities in favour of smaller quaint towns. In our 16-day Swiss Grand Circle we purposely skipped Zürich (apart from flying into its convenient airport), Geneva and Basel, the three largest Swiss cities by population, to make time for the likes of Appenzell and the Lavaux vineyards which we considered essential. But Bern isn’t an ordinary city; this was one of our trip’s highlights.
Archaic in its street layout and still partially Renaissance in architecture, Bern grew out of a hilly narrow peninsula enveloped on three sides by a sharp u-turn of River Aare -- perfect for medieval defenses but a headache in modern city planning -- and has since blossomed into this rare specimen of harmonious integration of a 21st century commercial centre and transport hub into its 16th century core.
The city’s heraldic symbol of bears, medieval in origin and markedly more menacing than the Paddington variety, became increasingly more noticeable the closer we traveled towards Bern. Here we couldn’t afford staying close to the historic quarter, opting instead for a cheap(er) room at Hotel ibis Bern Expo a 10 minute tram ride away.
Just two bus stops from our hotel, this panorama from the Rosengarten marked the start of a packed 2 km walk incorporating most of the major sights in Bern’s compact historic quarter. A former cemetery converted into a popular weekend hangout for citizens, this florid park has become better known for its postcard vista of the medieval centre than for its namesake roses.
A steep incline from the Rosengarten leads straight towards the unique BärenPark, a modernized bear enclosure that has kept alive Bern’s centuries-old tradition of housing its heraldic beast within the city. The current incarnation had been upgraded in 2009 to provide the bears with enlarged green living space on the bank of the Aare.
Directly west of the BärenPark are the 19th century stone arches of the Nydeggbrücke, crossing the Aare and entering a medieval town that has become the seat of Switzerland’s Federal Assembly. Other federal institutes such as the Federal Archives, Swiss National Library and Swiss Mint are now located a few hundreds metre south in the museum quarter.
Visitors entering Bern’s 600-metre-long main boulevard are inevitably greeted by the unmistakable sight of flamboyant Renaissance fountains, eleven in all and mostly originating from the hands of one single master sculptor from the 1500s. Standing proudly atop the pictured Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen is Lady Justice, comparably gentle among the colourful figures to grace these fountain pillars.
The narrowness of the peninsula gave rise to the medieval city plan of long and parallel streets, each lined with covered arcades on both sides to create a uniform and distinct townscape which led to Bern’s inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The combined 6 km of arched promenades also makes for one of Europe’s longest shopping arcades, rivalling Bologna south of the Alps.
Presence of the Vennerbrunnen, a Renaissance fountain honouring the medieval banner carriers who served as Bern’s political and military leaders, points the visitor towards the 15th Town Hall with its elegant Gothic arches. Next to the Town Hall stands a Catholic church dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, a minority in a city that converted its Cathedral to Prostestantism nearly almost 500 years ago.
Bears are apparently far from being the only famous residents. Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity while staying in an apartment here on the main drag, and Lenin strategized his campaigns here in the years leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution.
Partway through the old town looms Switzerland’s tallest bell tower, 100m in the air and an remarkable feat of medieval engineering, belonging to Bern’s 600-year-old Cathedral that originated as Roman Catholic before converting to the Swiss Reformed Church. Most spectacular is the elaborate scene of the Last Judgment above the main portal, featuring the only 15th century religious statues in Bern to survive the Protestant Reformation.
The oldest monument in town is the 800-year-old Zytglogge, a 13th century clock tower that once functioned as Bern’s town gate before the city progressively expanded and new guard towers established. We arrived just in time at 18:00 to see the little knights make their hourly gallop out of the clockwork while Chronos struck the bell with his hammer at the top.
It was the loveliest and easiest 2 km stroll that started at the Rosengarten, passing the Bärengraben and crossing the Nydeggbrücke onto Gerechtigkeitsgasse, with two short diversions to the Rathaus and the Münster before continuing down Kramgasse to finish in the shadow of the Käfigturm. Finishing at the Bärenplatz also meant convenient access to multiple tram lines to maximize our dinner choices.
Having been surviving on supermarket lunches and dinners for the past two and a half days, we figured to have earned the rights to a proper sit-down dinner at one of Bern’s best-loved blue-collar restaurants. Tugged away in the student neighbourhood of Länggasse, Restaurant Beaulieu (see map) is a 120-year-old institution that predated Einstein’s stint as lecturer at the neighbouring University of Bern. Despite its pedigree, prices are quite affordable in Swiss terms, meaning roughly CHF 80 (CAD$112) for two with drinks. Ouch.
My wife smartly ordered one classic Swiss dish that I have no confidence making at our apartment kitchen, a perfectly-formed cordon bleu filled to the edges of its meaty envelope with melted cheese.
Look at this melted Emmental oozing out of the pocket of ham and pork, effortless becoming my wife’s favourite dish of our entire 16-day trip.
And the cordon bleu did not outshine this traditional dish of tenderly pan-seared calf liver, finished in an aromatic sauce of herbed butter and served with the Swiss staple of rösti. While I cannot speak to how authentic Beaulieu’s renditions of her Swiss classics are, this was a top notch restaurant to our tastebuds at reasonable prices.
It seemed proper to finish with a cheesecake at the capital of the Land of Cheese. Two excellent main courses, a dessert to share plus wine and beer, and it came to less than CHF 40 per head. I wouldn’t mind doing this again if we had one more day in Bern, and I’m sure my wife would agree.
Meal for Two Persons
| Cordonlieu | CHF 29.5 |
| Kalbsläberli mit Rösti | CHF 26.5 |
| Cheesecake | CHF 9.5 |
| Dunkle Perle 0.5L | CHF 6.7 |
| Glass of Yvorne | CHF 4.6 |
| TOTAL | CHF 76.8 (CAD$107.5) |
The next morning we would leave town on an early train to spend the next three nights in the Bernese Highlands. In retrospect I would have loved one more day in Bern to properly explore its 6 km of lovely arcades, and with a couple hours spent floating down the Aare on an inflated tube like the locals. This is a city I would mind revisiting, perhaps in the winter as part of a ski trip.
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