Our recent trip to the Capital of Switzerland wasn't really on our 'must do things in Switzerland', but it was brought about by the need to get Charlotte's passport renewed. So we made an appointment with the US Consulate for one of our long weekends and made our way into Bern.
Before I give you the tour of the city, a couple of fun facts. We've now learned that Bern isn't actually the capital of Switzerland. Switzerland doesn’t have an official capital. Bern is the de-facto (in effect but not formally recognized) capital and is referred to as the federal city. It is home to the president and the federal palace, which serves as the seat of the government and the parliament.
Typically, the most famous or the largest cities are usually declared the capital cities of countries, right? But in the case of Switzerland, which is a mixed bag of French, German, and Italian cultures, diplomacy was important when choosing the site of the parliament.
When Switzerland became a federal state in 1848, Bern was chosen as the capital due to its tactical location between the German- and French-speaking parts of the country. (I guess we no longer had to be diplomatic to the Italians.) Bern also promised to donate the land for the administrative buildings for free. So the Swiss parliament was constructed in Bern. However, nowhere in the Swiss constitution does it state that Bern or any other city is the capital of Switzerland.
So maybe we were in the capital, maybe we weren't. We don't know anymore.
No matter what it's called, Bern is about 3 1/2 hours by train from Liechtenstein with a stop over in Zurich (also not the capital) around halfway which makes it just about the perfect distance to take two
occasionally always restless children so we arrived with minimal fuss and walked to our hotel roughly 1/2 mile from the train station. The hotel was nicely situated between the Consulate and the "Old Town" and it had just enough space for the 4 of us. But the most interesting thing for the girls was the wooden elevator.
Over the next several days we split our time between walking tours, a few museums and some random wandering with our trip to the consulate squeezed in on Tuesday.
On Sunday, since many places were closed we spent most of our time taking a walking tour of the heart of the city.
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Kafigturm or prison tower which was once part of the walled city from the 1250's;
it was renovated in the 1640's and functioned as a prison until the 1890's |
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| The Parliament Building |
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| View of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau mountains from the terrace next to Parliament |
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Zytglogge-Turm is a mechanical clock that dates back to 1530 and the characters to the right
start their performance at 4 minutes till the top of every hour |
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| Bern Cathedral - Once Catholic now Protestant Cathedral with the tallest church spire in Switzerland at 330 ft. |
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| Wait! This isn't one of the of the Cathedral statues! |
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| Oh, and neither is this! |
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| Samson Fountain |
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| Erlacherhof - Known as the only house in Bern with a courtyard, today it is the official residence of the Mayor |
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| View of the Cathedral from Nydegg Bridge |
On Monday we got up early and went in search of Museums. We settled on the Communication Museum and the Natural History Museum which were a bit of a hike so we got some more pictures along the way.
We finally made it to the communication museum
After the walk to the museum and all the excitement from writing our names with a quill pen Olivia was ready for a nap so she and I made our way back to the hotel while Amanda and Charlotte continued on to the Natural History museum.
The girls made it back to the hotel by mid afternoon and since we weren't sure how much time would have on Tuesday to play tourist after our Consulate Appointment, I made one last venture out to get some photos from the other side of the river.
We finished our tour of Bern with dinner and a stroll along the terrace.
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Food is REALLY expensive in Bern so we settled for something we knew the
girls would love and be familiar with. Sometimes you gotta go with what you know |
So about that Consulate appointment. We got there early and were thankful that the line was only 8 people deep and since we were the only ones with a US passport we got to go straight in. The interview/paperwork process went smoothly enough and we were done in about 45 minutes. So we decided to celebrate with a little shopping and frozen treats before we had to catch our train home
