Month: August 2012

Berner Bach Chor likes to “beat the music to death”, in other words, they want their performances to be perfect so they rehearse intensely.  This week this meant Jon had an extra Saturday rehearsal, originally planned for 2 pm to 9 pm, but changed to 2 to 6.  Friday we had friends over for dinner who reminded us that this was the last Bern Free Museum Day, so with the morning free, we finally visited the Bern Historical Museum.  Great!  Looking forward to going back and seeing more as we only had 3 hours there.

I came back to Bern to join Jon after his rehearsal, ostensibly to go to a co-worker’s party, but due to a mix-up resulting from the language barrier, we went to the wrong address and ended up simply eating dinner at a—fortunately very good—Japanese restaurant which we would never have found without the mix-up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With only Sunday to bike, we chose to circle the Gurten, Bern’s massive hill-park.  Jon planned a GPS route of 48km and we took off, knowing with cooler temps and a shorter ride, it would be a light day.  Yeah, well, I wish I could show you the elevation profile!

Anyway, we accomplished the task set before us, feeling rather proud when we analyzed our track: a max of 14% uphill grade and 21% down!  Home again, home again, and naptime for you know who.

The Plan:  bike 90+km to Yverdon-les-Bains, overnight at a hotel, bike home along the north side of Lake Neuchatel. The actual trip: bike 96km over too many hills in too hot weather with too little sunscreen, try to lift legs to walk through Yverdon, collapse in worse-than-basic hotel room, eat hotel’s petite dejeuner (not a Swiss-style fruhstuck), strain over steep terraced hillsides to Neuchatel, let the SBB do the pedaling from there to Bern.  In other words, we had another great weekend!  Herewith the pics.

 

Tiny Murten has a big reputation. It has a nice medieval old town and a nearly fully preserved town wall.  We sampled the local specialty:  Nidelkuchen (cream cake).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout Switzerland there are remains of Roman rule.  We climbed the hill in Avenches to see its ancient amphitheater.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

North of Yverdon are menhirs (standing stones), some five thousand years old.  They were reset in their original positions in 1986, one of many clusters of Neolithic stone circles and dolmens near Lake Neuchâtel.

A brief pause, after climbing through the vineyards, by an old palace.  There was someone working on the landscaping, so I casually asked him (in French) whether this place was his.  He told me no, but it is for sale.  Perhaps I would like to buy?

The Eglise Collégial, Neuchâtel’s Cathedral, has a 1372 ‘Monument to the Counts’, memorial statues to its rulers.  During the Reformation, the town folk so identified this as purely Neuchâtelois that they refused to tear it down when the rest of the artwork was being destroyed.

Beside the Eglise stands a former chateau, now a public building where government business is conducted.  The courtroom’s walls are lined with heraldic shields which tell the history of the town’s rulers.

Weather was iffy:  Saturday looked probably good, but Sunday was given a high chance of rain.  That and high hotel rates led us to make our ride yesterday round-trip.  We knew that if at any point it was too difficult, we could head to a train station and get home easily and cheaply.  So, off to Burgdorf, an 86 km. route on Swiss Regional bike trails.  With a new rear bike rack and case holding our emergency gear (those rains might come early), even riding on gravel paths was easy.  Heading toward Langnau and the Emme River (Emmental means valley of the Emme and yes, that’s where the cheese comes from), was a bit of a climb.  Then we had a gradual downhill from Langnau through and beyond Burgdorf, ending with a smaller uphill climb to home.  In Burgdorf itself we were entertained by a typically high-priced Swiss café and a lovely little castle, where we learned a little about antique ceramics, the Swiss gold rush and making linen.