Jon had another all-day rehearsal on Saturday, so I spent the time window shopping. It quickly became obvious that, once familiar with stores and watching for sales, one could find affordable clothes if one lived here permanently. Though tempted by a few sightings, remembering our difficulty packing held me back from buying. By the way, so far men’s clothing in Bern is looking very traditional and bland while women’s clothes have more style than I ever see in America.
Determined not to waste a day off in Switzerland, for Sunday I planned a day trip to Fribourg. Jon was pretty tired, but with a little encouragement, agreed to go. Fribourg was not quite as attractive a town as their tourism site describes (which is usually the case), but we enjoyed wandering its old streets.
The cathedral has a very unimposing front, more so since the plaster is crumbling. Inside, however, the stained glass windows were exceptional, designed and made mostly by Polish artist Józef Mehoffer (1869-1946) in the late 1890’s to early 1900’s.
We visited three churches in 1.5 blocks: St. Nicholas Cathedral, Eglise des Cordeliers and Basilique de Notre Dame.
As we exited the third, it started to rain so we ducked into Espace Jean Tinguely et Niki de Saint Phalle. The museum is tiny and Tinguely’s works, while vaguely interesting, held no sense of ‘art’ for us. We have seen other ‘recycled-junk’ art which seemed truly artistic, but we found his work boring.
Just up the street from the Tinguely (and offered at a discount if you buy admission to the two museums together) is the Art & History Museum. Initially it seemed somewhat small and with a rather typical assortment of mostly religious pieces. As we explored, we were taken deeper and deeper into rooms some of which were apparently part of the foundation of some large fortress or castle from the look of the walls.
We had planned to cap our day with seeing “Skyfall” in Bern. It started at 8:15 so between the rain and early sunset, we had plenty of time for a leisurely dinner in Fribourg. Prepared now to pay exorbitant prices for average food, I was nonetheless stunned with the poor quality at the restaurant we happened to choose: food so tasteless and difficult to swallow that I ate almost none of it. This by someone who usually ‘licks the plate clean’ to avoid food waste.
With the food so bad, we didn’t linger and were back in Bern early enough to try dessert at a place we know. They however were having a food fest that was closed to the public. So we ‘settled’ for chocolates from a train station store and headed on.
In November and December Bern puts on a free outdoor light and music show called “Rendez-vous Bundesplatz”, using the Federal Building, where Parliament meets, as the backdrop. This night we saw it for the second time and enjoyed it just as much as the first time.
We thought we were still early for the movie, but in Switzerland movie theaters have you pick your seats when you buy your tickets. With some people buying tickets online, we ended up in the third row from the front. Still, popcorn satisfied my hunger and though the film was long, it was fun to be in a dry theater, in comfortable seats, watching a new movie in English.
Side note: I had an exceptionally miserable cold–undoubtedly contracted at one of the parties last week–and with the stress of extra rehearsals and performances and a very long day on Sunday, Jon spent much of this week in bed with a cold. We are thinking with rain forecast this coming Saturday and Sunday, this may be a complete resting weekend. Whoever says you can’t have too much fun hasn’t had a 55th birthday.