Trip to Bern/Communing with the Shelleys in the Alps

More photos! This time with decidedly less imminent rain.

So I went to Bern to meet up with le grandmother, hang out away from my computer, and generally toodle about a new city for a bit. It was fab, and I managed to get more work done there than I had in the week previous, so that was a bit of a relief. Bern is lovely, exceedingly accessible and almost obsessively clean, and it was balmy and bright for three out of the four days I was there, which was fantastic. With no further ado, to the photos! (Sorry, there are a lot of them. I was a total tourist. In fact, these should probably go under a cut.)

Here's our hotel. It was right in the middle of the central peninsula, where all of the shops are, and all of the covered sidewalks are. 

LENS FLARE! I am like unto JJ Abrams. But yeah, there were lots of frescos on the buildings that were really lovely. 

Pretty buildings with pretty shades.

The minster was all under construction, so it was difficult to see, but the park in the back of it was lovely, filled with benches and with a fantastic view across the city.

This is a view from the minster's park. The castle-y building is the city museum, which I spent a day in, because not only was there lots of awesome art and architecture from the city, but also a few of the terra cotta warriors from the Qin dynasty were currently on display in a special exhibition.

Also a view from the park, which was all elevated and walled in.

And another view. Yes, the river is actually that colour, though maybe a little bluer. People were swimming in it. This was not the Hudson.Also, I was super jealous, because it was very hot out.

Further random paintings on the buildings!

The covered sidewalks were great--super useful when it rained, served as seating areas for restaurants, parking for bikes, and apparently places to deposit books you don't want anymore, so that other people can pick them up and browse. I found conference proceedings on the post-Cold War 1990s. Good stuff!

One of the many bridges connecting the peninsula with the other side of the river.

One of my favourite pictures, because it was really early in the morning, utterly quiet. Taken from the back of the central parliament building, which is also an ace hangout spot. I saw evidence of partiers from the previous night on the steps of the building (the only time, by the way, that I saw any sort of trash that wasn't in a carefully sorted and labeled recycling or rubbish bin). Clearly, Bern is not big on anti-terror security. It's refreshing.

Also in the back of parliament: chess! 

This too. Parliament is the place to be!

And now, THE ALPS. The ethnomusicologists went on a hiking trip into the mountains. I came along to commune with the Shelleys.

We had to ride up part of the way, and then split into three groups of varying hiking difficulty. I chose the difficult group, because CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

There were cows! 

They are utterly inured to people.

This is my Greetings From Switzerland picture.

View from about halfway up the ascent to Alpentower.

Some people for scale. The Alps are large, if you were not already aware.

And they have nice flowers.

The Alpentower! It was 500m above where we started the hike, and I definitely felt the air get thinner by the end. There was a fair amount of panting and pausing to catch my breath by the end. We were told that this was an easy trail, done by three-year-olds. We commented that those three-year-olds are Swiss three-year-olds, and are therefore not a fair point of comparison.

Nevertheless, success! Chilly, but very beautiful up top. I am definitely going to have to reread 'Mont Blanc' with these panoramas in mind. 

Then halfway back down, there was a cheese festival! Coupled with traditional flag waving and alphorns and yodeling. So the full Swiss experience was had.

All in all, it was a very good time indeed, and my writer's block mostly dissipated as a result. It was great to catch up with Grandma, eat some good food, meet new people and say hi to familiar faces, and hang out in the sunshine. A very good last hurrah before the academic year starts.