Skip to main content

Bern and a Hike

Zug, Switzerland - We visited Bern last weekend and we went for a hike up the Zugerberg.


Bern

Bern is the fifth largest city in Switzerland with a population of 140,000. It is the de facto capital; the Swiss constitution intentionally has no official capital, making a facto capital an administrative impossibility. However, this is where many (though, not all) government institutions are located, such as the parliament and the federal council. 

Bern, like so many Swiss cities, has a lovely old town that's very nice to stroll through. Cars are barred from driving on many of these cobblestone streets, but weirdly, trams are still permitted and they aren't particularly well separated from the pedestrians (see here), so pedestrians will occasionally receive a horn to warn of impending bodily injury. 

Bears feature prominently in Bern - mostly in the form of symbols and legends, but also live bears. Legend has it that the founder of the city, Berthold V, Duke of Zähringen, vowed to name the city after the first animal he encountered on a hunt, which turned out to be a bear (the fate of that bear is uncertain). Bern, then, is some derivative of the medieval German word for bear. This legend has been disputed since at least the 1980s, with many now claiming that the city's name hearkens back to Celtic times, where the "Bern" was a toponym, borrowing from the Celtic word "berna" for cleft. But this is much more boring than a bear-hunting legend and anyway the Bernese long ago adopted bears as their spirit animal and heraldic beast. They are so enamored with bears that since the mid-15th century, they've kept a couple in a bear pit on the eastern side of the city.

Bernese mountain dogs were originally bred here as general farm dogs. If you didn't know, Bernese mountain dogs are large and vaguely resemble a bear in dog form. 

Image result for huge bernese mountain dog
Bernese Mountain Dog, courtesy of bluemountainbernese.com

Bern is also known for its fountains. There are over 100 public fountains in Bern with fresh drinking water and historically they served as meeting points for the city's residents. Eleven fountains have 16th century allegorical figures on top of them. My personal favorite is the Kindlifresserbrunnen, which translates to "the child eater fountain."

Well known nerd, Albert Einstein was a resident of Bern. It was here that he developed his Theory of Relativity. Paul Klee is also from Bern and there is a museum here that focuses on his work. The museum is located among pastures on a hillside just outside of town. It's a neat contemporary building, but we were disappointed by the museum, which was relatively light on the Klee on heavy on the price (20 CHF per person).

The Old City of Bern
Kindlifresserbrunnen, AKA the Child Eater

More Fountains

Bern's Astronomical Clock
Lovely buildings in Bern

Bern's obsession with Bears on full display here

Zugerberg

Zugerberg is the local mountain outside of Zug. It rises to 925 meters, but the altitude of Zug itself is already about 425 meters, so the overall prominence isn't that substantial relative to some of the other mountains in the area (Rigi, by comparison, is 1,798 meters). Like all of Switzerland's scenic natural locales, it's very accessible. Buses will take you to and from the base, and there is a funicular railway back and forth to the peak. For H and I, it is the closest of the nearby peaks: We can walk to the peak and back from the center of town in roughly three hours. Hannah and I took a bus out to the base of the mountain and then walked to the top along a steep paved roadway (cars were not allowed). The way was mostly wooded, though it let out onto pastureland as we reached the top. The top of Zugerberg has several restaurants and facilities for winter sports, picnicking, etc. It's all very quaint. We took a different way back, this time walking directly from the peak into Zug (rather than to the bus stop). This pathway lovely: it took us through a mix of pastures and woods and provided beautiful views of Zug.

From Zugerberg, looking down on Zug

From Zugerberg, looking down on Zug and prominently featuring picturesque farmhouse

Pastures on Zugerberg with more farmhouse

More pastures on Zugerberg
Lake Zug, at the conclusion of our hike


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Swiss Advance to the Quarterfinals

Zurich, Switzerland - Monday evening was one of jubilation in Zurich, and indeed, throughout Switzerland: the Schweizer Nati (Swiss National Team) advanced to the quarterfinal in the UEFA Euro 2020 championship (European soccer tournament). As you've probably guessed, this championship was supposed to be held last year, but was obviously delayed due to the pandemic. Despite that, the tournament organizers have persisted in calling it Euro 2020.  This is the first time Switzerland has advanced this far in the tournament. The victory came over a juggernaut, the reviled French. Sports books significantly favored the French in this match (a $100 bet on Switzerland would have paid out $550) and in fact the French were the favorite or among the favorites to win it all.  Indeed, the Swiss were down 3-1 into the later minutes of the game. The crowd gathered around our local bar, Le Calvados, was sullen and quiet. With ten minutes to go, the prominent cranium of Haris Seferovic, showin...

We're Back!

Paris, France - We've returned to Europe for a three-week sojourn in France, Switzerland, and the UK. We're obviously very excited. We arrived in Paris Sunday around 11AM. Our approach to jet lag is akin to tearing the bandaid off quickly: We purposely sleep little if at all on our transatlantic flight (below is a photo of Hannah, trying not to sleep on the flight), consume copious amounts of caffeine after we land, slowly descend into irritability and mild delirium, and then collapse after staying up as late as we can on our first night in Europe. Our body's, overcome by shock from this maltreatment, eagerly accept a full night's sleep, even if it's offered at an hour that's entirely out of keeping with our normal schedule. Works like a charm.  After depositing our things at the hotel, we aimlessly wandered around Paris for a few hours before meeting up with Maggie, an acquaintance of Hannah's from work. Maggie took us to the wine bar Delicatessen where we ...

We summit Rigi

Arth, Switzerland - H and I summited Mt. Rigi this weekend. Rigi is among the great peaks in this area, known to some as the "Queen of the Mountains." It's visible from Zug and nearby Lucerne. Starting in the early afternoon, Hannah and I slowly made our way to the blustery and snow-covered peak by 300PM. Our ascent was over 1,200 meters, starting from the nearby town of Arth. As you might expect, there was huffing and puffing and even a bit of rumbling as we chugged our way up, but not once did Hannah and I think of turning back. No, we were committed to riding that train straight to the peak! Rigi is actually something of a landmark in railway history. It was the first mountain cogwheel railway in Europe (though, the title for world's first mountain  cogwheel   railway goes to the Mt. Washington Cog Railway in New Hampshire). Rigi's cogwheel railway was complete in 1871 and it's still in use today. Unsurprisingly, the railway greatly increased access to th...