A tale of four Swiss cities (Part Three)

So after a fantastic time in warm Zurich I boarded the train and began my journey to the Swiss capital.

 

 On my way there the weather began to deteriorate and by the time I arrived it was raining quite heavily but I had just enough time to snap a picture on my way to my accommodation!

The price of Swiss hotels finally beat me in Bern and I had to do some couchsurfing! I stayed with Helmer who was originally from Turkey and lived in a residential area of the city. Helmer, being a football coach, but also a taxi driver, had some interesting stories to tell me about the capital and its surrounding area and overall it was a great experience.

The following day I went to the train station and met up with a student who lives in the city called Yannick who was kind enough to show me around Bern. It was really interesting to hear about some of the history of the city and also some of the politics which he was able to tell me about as his father worked for the regional government. The first place we headed to was the cathedral and we walked what seemed to be hundreds of steps to the stop (quite an exhausting trek!) but the views were worth it, apparently on a clear day they are even better with the snow-capped mountain in the background.

On the river bank in the distance on the bottom picture above you can see a first glimpse of the bear enclosure, quite a unique feature of the city. Apparently bears have been kept in various enclosures in the city for hundreds of years and the bear stands as the symbol of the city appearing on its official flag. The current enclosure is the biggest and most recently renovated and the bears kept there are even able to swim in a small amount of the River Aare. We gradually walked through the beautiful and quiet streets to the riverside to take a look at the 'bear pit' as it's known, here it was also possible to get a great view of Bern in the background.

Before heading to the train station Yannick kindly made a great dinner at his small apartment, free accommodation and free food - both very welcome in Switzerland! The apartment was in a lovely location right in the centre on one of Bern's main streets and was a great last place to hang out before my last train journey in the country.

My next and final destination in Switzerland was Geneva and the train ride on the way there from Bern offered up some spectacular scenery as you can see below. This train journey was also significant because it crossed over from the German speaking to French speaking part of the country. The border town is 'Fribourg/Freiburg' as it states on the station name to show the two languages now fully coming into play. Very quickly everyone on the train was suddenly speaking French!