Our European Holiday Day 14 - Bern

Today was a great day in Bern! I absolutely loved Bern. Everyone is so nice, and it’s a beautiful, medieval city. UNESCO made Bern Old Town a world heritage site because it’s a well-preserved medieval town. It’s really beautiful. It’s crazy to think that so many of the amazing things we saw in Europe were older than the United States. We don’t have any old things west of the Atlantic.

We started the morning by visiting the Rosengarten. This is a rose garden with beautiful views of Bern. It was about ½ mile from our hotel, so it was a nice morning walk. We spent time walking around the garden. Two older ladies were sitting right above the city enjoying a picnic. It was lovely. On our way down to Old Town, we stopped by the bear pit. We loved the bear park. The bears were active again this morning ambling around the enclosure.

We had plans to visit the church this morning, but it’s closed for construction, unfortunately. Hopefully next time we come back (Eric says he doesn’t want to come back, but I wouldn’t mind visiting Bern again ☺) we can visit the church and climb the stairs to the terrace. Eric and I love climbing stairs, towers, and walls when we travel for some reason, so even though our legs are still wrecked from our hike in the Alps we felt like we were tough enough to brave more stairs. It’s probably a good thing the church was closed.

After the church, we wandered through the old town and I bought some chocolate. In most cities, we visit there are chocolate shops that sell truffles or just small wrapped candies. It’s fun to pop in and buy just one or two candies for a mid-morning treat. The cashier was really nice. We later went back and purchased a small pile of chocolate for friends and family. She laughed when we came back to the store because I think she was surprised to see us again so soon. We then wandered to the Parliament building, which was pretty. It’s always fun to visit a country’s capital.

Our next stop was a Botanical Garden near a university. I liked this garden because it seemed wild. Eric didn’t love it quite as much because it wasn’t very pretty. Either way, it was a nice walk. By this time, our day in Bern was quickly coming to a close because we had a train to Paris we had to catch.  We headed back into town and bought some crepes from a food truck for lunch. They were delicious! The guy running the truck lived in California and said he drove through SLC often. It was really fun to talk to him. While we enjoyed our crepes, we discussed whether we could/should open a crepe food truck. It’s always fun to imagine new things.

After lunch, we purchased our small pile of chocolate and then slowly walked back to our hotel. This was one of our favorite hotels – they were so nice and hospitable! They called a cab for us and then we were off to the train station. The train ride was about 5 hours long with 1 stop in Geneva. It was a nice journey. I finished reading Bear Town, which is a great book. Eric worked on pictures and watched a movie. We arrived in Paris around 8:00 and had to wait 30 minutes in the cab line. It was obnoxious until we realized that taxis in Paris are the most reasonably priced taxis we’ve had this whole trip! It was a nice surprise. We are excited to enjoy our day in Paris tomorrow!