In order to make the most of our time in this one country and see everything that was on our to-do list—compiled of cities and towns from our own desires as well as recommendations from others—we headed almost immediately to Interlaken. Interlaken gets its name because it sits between two lakes—“inter” and “laken,” meaning “between two lakes.” These two lakes are part of the lure of Interlaken for travelers and we certainly saw why. Despite having only a couple of hours before the sun set, we saw enough to appreciate the charm and beauty of this tiny, somewhat touristy town. We stayed for dinner and enjoyed our first Swiss meal; I enjoyed breaded turkey, fries (roasted potatoes, as they like to call them), and steamed veggies while Kyle ate gravy smothered pork, fries, and veggies. Our first “taste” of Switzerland kept us wanting more.
Friday we spent all day in Bern, and hardly wanted to leave for our next two destinations once Saturday morning arrived. Bern was a top priority on our list of places to see because of both Kyle’s and my connection to New Bern, North Carolina (founded by a man from Bern, Switzerland—explanation to come) due to our summers being spent on the North Carolina coast at Camps Sea Gull and Seafarer, each about 30 minutes from New Bern. Our summers at the camps, particularly those spent on staff, have allowed both of us to enjoy a significant amount of time in New Bern and develop relationships with people who live there. In addition to our time at camp, my family on the maternal side helped settle Craven County, North Carolina, in which New Bern is located. Needless to say, New Bern feels like home to Kyle and me, so we were anxious to explore its sister city, Bern, and learn about their connection. Here is a real life example of just how important social networking is and the benefits it has: because of a Camp Sea Gull and Seafarer connection, Kyle and I were given a private tour of the “Bern to New Bern” exhibit in the Bern History Museum during our stay in the city. Nelson McDaniel, a friend and long-time New Bernian, North Carolinian spends a lot of time traveling through Europe—France and Switzerland being amongst his favorite countries to visit. Kyle and Nelson have a close relationship, so when Nelson found out we were headed to Switzerland for the weekend, he quickly put us in contact with his good friend Christine de Graffenried in Bern, who was the prime mover of the “Bern to New Bern” exhibit, and he asked if she would be willing to show us the exhibit. She gladly agreed and we met with her for a wonderful afternoon full of history and neat facts.
Ms. Christine de Graffenried is a member of the de Graffenreid family, of which Christopher de Graffenried—founder of New Bern, North Carolina—comes. Therefore, she helped establish the exhibit that explains the connection between the two cities and includes information about the de Graffenried family history, how New Bern, NC came to be, and a little about North Carolina history and New Bern today. Here’s the story: basically, Christopher de Graffenried was unhappy with his life in Bern, Switzerland and wanted to explore the world. He obtained permission from the Queen of England to travel to America and take some people with him. Once he reached the New World, he founded the town of New Bern on the peninsula between the Neuse and Trent rivers. His over-generosity soon made him bankrupt and he had to return to Bern, Switzerland where he later passed away, having never made it back to the New World to see how his new town was doing. The people he left behind, including his son—also Christopher de Graffenried, in New Bern continued to develop the city and it flourished, as it still does today. There are enough similarities between the two cities that you can tell they are connected—such as the bear being both of their symbols, along with the red and yellow colors in each of their flag. Trivia Question: How can you tell the Bern, Switzerland flag and the New Bern, North Carolina flag apart? The bear on the Bern flag is male, as indicated by the red triangle in the bear’s groin on the flag, and the bear on the New Bern flag is female, as indicated by the lack of the red triangle in the bear’s groin on the flag. New Bern will be celebrating its 300th year anniversary this summer, which both Nelson McDaniel and Christine de Graffenried have helped plan and will be participating in, as Bern will have a part in the celebration since it is the reason New Bern was settled in the first place. Unfortunately, the relationship between Bern and New Bern has not always existed so strongly—there was no contact between the two cities for close to 200 years, and only recently within the last 100 years have there been steady and consistent visits of political figures and other important people between the two cities during such things as anniversary celebrations and other landmark events. Also unfortunately, the Bernese people are quite unaware of New Bern, North Carolina (and I’m sure few North Carolinians realize the history of New Bern—which was North Carolina’s first capital—and its connection to Switzerland), and that they have a sister city at all—a major reason why Christine de Graffenried made sure the exhibit in Bern’s history museum was created. Ms. de Graffenried was very kind, extremely knowledgeable, and even had coffee with us after the tour so we could talk with her for a bit. She is a very sweet woman and I am grateful for the chance to have met her and for the tour she gave us.
*For my North Carolinians and camp people—most of the “Bern to New Bern” exhibit will be in the new education center of Tryon palace in New Bern upon completion later this year, for those interested in seeing it.
Prior to seeing the museum exhibit, we visited Bern’s Bear Park (Bern’s symbol is the bear, as already mentioned) where we saw three live brown bears—one mama and two babies; they have to be some of the cutest animals I have seen yet! The park is man-made and fairly new, which explains the low number of actual bears in the park, but large enough and modeled to look like the brown bear’s natural habitat. The mama spent most of her time climbing up the hill and sniffing around, while the babies played with each other, often losing their balance and tumbling down the hill on their backs—which was precious. We were amused for quite a while watching them interact with one another and play around. We followed our viewing of the bears with another tasty Swiss meal, this time of boiled sausages and salted pretzels with sweet mustard (the Swiss love their pretzels), before we headed to the museum.
The fun didn’t stop there for us…the rest of our day in Bern was filled with much more activity; we picked the perfect day to visit. The weather was gorgeous, the sun shone brightly and it was warm enough for me to be able to take off my fleece jacket as we walked up to the rose garden that overlooked the entire city of Bern. There we stayed for the afternoon with several other young Bernese people, staring out over the rooftops of Bern and watching the sun set over the Alps. That night I traded the four-day long festival in Sansepolcro I had left behind without getting to participate in for another festival, Bern-style. It just so happened to be Bern’s “Museumnacht,” meaning Museum Night in German, where all of the historic buildings and museums were open in Bern for the price of one low-rate ticket that gave you access to each building. Since we did not know about Museumnacht enough ahead of time, and that all of the tours of the museums and buildings would have been given in German anyway (not even my limited Italian knowledge could help me in Switzerland), we decided to forgo the tours, but were able to participate in a handful of other enjoyable activities that were happening in the main square of the city because of Museumnacht. We soon realized that this was a big night for Bern and its people, as there were special trams (the main mode of transportation around the city) devoted strictly to moving people from one building involved in Museumnacht to another, some streets were shut down for the crowds, and everyone seemed to be out and about. Of course, we joined in the fun. Each historic building that was a part of the night was lit-up with a different colored light so you would know where to go, so Kyle and I did manage to see the beautiful outsides of each place. We then made our way into the crowded center of town where people were gathered participating in various activities. After petting some live cows and trying our hand at wood carving (at which neither of us was very successful…), I was invited to participate in some authentic Swiss dancing. A Swiss dance troupe was performing for the crowd, and after having danced for a bit, they each went out and brought in one observer to participate in a partner dance—and I was one of the lucky ones. Thankfully I am a visual learner and thankfully the woman who asked me to participate spoke English very well, otherwise I would have been out of luck. She quickly explained in English what the announcer was telling the other guests in German, and I caught on enough to participate in the dance without embarrassing myself. It was so much fun! It was a circle/switch partners dance with a fast moving shuffle for a part, and I loved every second; now I can say that I know an authentic Swiss dance!
After dancing and wood carving, we took a ride on an “old-timers” bus, as they called it, around town. For Museumnacht they brought out a lot of old buses and cars that had been fixed up so as to be drivable, and offered rides around town to guests; this must have been custom because at one point as we were walking down a street not too far from all of the action, several old cars kept driving down the road with people riding in them and observers were lined up on the street, watching, clapping and cheering at each car that drove by. It was a very fun night and I am so glad it was going on the day we happened to be visiting.
On Saturday we headed to Thun, Switzerland, en route to which we had a delay where I learned some interesting and disturbing information. Our just over 15 minute train ride from Bern to Thun turned into a 3 hour train ride after we heard some clinking on the tracks under the train and our speeding train came to a sudden stop. My stomach hurts just writing about this, but it is part of my European experience and it is something interesting—suicide by train is common in Europe, being that trains are used very frequently as a mode of transportation within countries and between countries. On our way to Thun, someone committed suicide by jumping in front of our moving train, causing our travels to come to a complete stop and for an investigation to ensue on the tracks for a few hours before we were allowed to continue on. Our train sped through a train station, it not being one our scheduled stops, and shortly after the sound of what seemed to be metal clinking on the tracks was heard. Our train halted, and an announcement was made in German, which our very friendly seat neighbor translated for us in his very good English. Someone had jumped in front of the train at the last station—it was assumed to be suicide (like I said, this is common), but the police needed to investigate to be sure. The most surprising thing for me was that everyone on the train, most if not all of who were Swiss natives, or at least European, were more annoyed than concerned! Perhaps because each of them has had this happen to them at least once before when they have traveled by train? The longer we had to wait, the more annoyed people became; I, however, was disturbed. What was the conductor feeling? Have they had this happen to them before? I suppose, though, that the equivalent for us in the States is suicide by guns; gun use in Europe is not common. As upsetting as it is, I soon realized this was probably not something to be overly concerned about, and for now I will write it off as just another, very unexpected, cultural difference I have encountered during my time abroad.
Even with our shortened visit (we had to make Thun a day trip, and were therefore limited to the afternoon because of our delay) we were able to enjoy the town as we took the walking tour suggested by the map we picked up at the tourist office. We wandered through a large Saturday market taking place along one of the main streets, ate lunch at a wonderful pizzeria (not very Swiss, I know, but by far one of the best bruschettas and pizzas I have ever had), saw an old castle, admired the view of the Alps from the top of a hill, marched along some old cobblestone streets and narrow stone stairways, walked across an old bridge over a dam, and enjoyed some delicious Swiss chocolate. It was a perfect afternoon and I fell in love with both Bern and Thun that weekend (Italy isn’t the only place in which I’m falling in love this semester…).
We caught a late train back to Bern to pick up our luggage (even though we arrived later than planned in Thun, we didn’t let it rush us through our exploration of the town), and then headed to Zurich for the last leg of our weekend. With seven hours worth of train rides back to Italy the next day, my train was leaving early Sunday morning, so Zurich was a quickie stop on our itinerary. We spent enough time, though, to say at least legitimately that we went and we saw. When we arrived Saturday night we set out to find dinner and ended up in what we figured to be the nightlife district of the city, with various restaurants, bars, clubs, and adult cinemas (if you catch my drift) lining three whole blocks. We found a restaurant that was still serving food and not just drinks, and had another Swiss meal—chicken slices smothered in a creamy pepper sauce with homemade spatzle on the side for me, and breaded veal and fries for Kyle. Add a good German wheat beer and it was delicious! We walked up and down the blocks to get a feel for the Zurich people and enjoy the evening, but the loads of cigarette smoke drove us away after not too long*. We got up early the next morning to try and see a few more sights through the rain drops before heading out—I can at least say that Zurich has some beautiful old buildings and churches, at least from the outside.
*I really wish someone would inform all Europeans of how bad smoking is for them—everyone does it; I don’t think I’ve been able to take a fresh breath of air outdoors since I’ve been here.
I love Switzerland, and am glad for the chance to have visited. I had a view of the Alps just about everywhere we were, and watching them fade away as I rode the train back into Italy was a bit sad. It is nice to be home now, though, and coming back into a country where I can at least recognize some of the language and am familiar with at least a few of the customs creates a good feeling, a comfortable one. I can now add another European country to my list of places visited, and loved, as well as be able to impress others with my great knowledge of the connection between North Carolina and Switzerland.
Ciao for now,
Hilary
