| Seeing The Swiss In Their Natural Habitat |
Paris is a hard act to follow. Whether referring to it's charming neighborhoods, delicious wine and food, amazing parks, or just the city in general, not very much compares. All at once, the city seems modern, historical, romantic, classy, and still quite friendly. And I've never seen more couples laying around together, holding hands or having a quick makeout session than in the parks or by the Seine in Paris. With so much to do and explore, Paris' magnetic personality really had me wanting to stick around.
For this reason, I was unsure how I'd feel about the small Swiss capitol city of Bern. We arrived by high-speed train yesterday afternoon after a very speedy and scenic trip across eastern France, which as it turns out is full of endless green farmland. I really had no idea how pretty it was out there. Getting to see the countryside really made me think about my next trip to France, when perhaps I could rent a car and seek out a few of the roads less travelled by tourism.
We exited the busy train station and were immediately greeted by a sunny, very charming old world type of town. Bern is the capitol of Switzerland, but there isn't much that would make you think so. The old city, which is the central part of town that most people come to visit, is walkable from one end to another in about 20 minutes, or a half hour if you stop for lots of photos like we do. There are almost no cars in our part of town, due to an intentional lack of parking spaces, and people seem to walk all over everywhere. I like it.
Whenever we get to a new country, I always try to get a sense of the people as well as the place. The best word I can think of right now to describe the Swiss is quirky. Here in Bern, they speak a dialect of German riddled with French, which makes it so hard for travelers like us. At the grocery store, you're sometimes greeted by a "Guten tag!", and as you leave, they say "Merci!". Then all the sudden someone throws in a "Danke". It makes trying to use the local language out of respect almost impossible, so I usually just revert back to boring English. Also, in Bern there are laws governing when stores can be open. There isn't a single bit of shopping in the whole town after 5pm on Saturday and all day Sunday. The only place we could buy groceries was back at the train station. Oh, and everything here is ridiculously expensive. We've had two homemade dinners of pasta and sauce since arriving because it's all we can really afford.
But all quirkiness aside, I like it here. There isn't all that much to do, but the town is cute, the people are nice, and the Alps are always on the horizon, which is beautiful. Oh, and there's a clear blue-green river meandering around town called the Aare that the locals love to swim in, which was our source of inspiration for today's activity.
We left the hostel at the very early hour of 11:30 and headed toward the river. As it turns out, there was some very important footrace running through town, so we had to make lots of detours to get where we were going. As a result, we ended up seeing a lot more people and places than we otherwise would have, which was cool. So many of the places we go are so overrun by tourists that it makes us wonder if we are really experiencing any local culture at all. Bern seems to be a nice respite from this.
Down by the river, there are public swimming pools surrounded by acres of flat green grass, which everyone lays around on like a beach. There are lockers for rent, food and drinks, showers, and of course the river. On this particular Sunday, it was above 80, sunny, and everyone was out. If I had to estimate, I would say there were probably over a thousand people of all ages out in the park. We rented a locker for our stuff and changed into our bathing suits.
Wanting to do as the Swiss do, we decided to take a dip in the river. The Aare is a fast moving river fed by lots of Alpine snowmelt from high up places like the Schilthorn. It is not warm, but all the locals seemed to hop in and have such a nice time floating around that we didn't think there was anything to it. Well, that turned out to be a false assumption. I'm not really sure why it seemed like such a good idea to go in. Our guidebook told us to, the receptionist at our hostel also recommended it, and tons of Swiss people floated by every minute that we stood on the shore. The Aare is very much like the Yellowstone in size, appearance, and flow rate, and the banks are sharp slippery rock. In hindsight, we never go swmming in the Yellowstone in the summer because it is freezing and the current and the rocks are so dangerous. For some reason I did not transfer that wisdom over here to Switzerland, as the three of us naively jumped in.
What happened next was actually quite intense. I shoved off from the set of stone steps where we started, trying to get closer to the center of the river to avoid the rocks under the surface. Alex was with me, but Marc was straggling. We swam upstream until Marc caught up to us, and by then he was already visibly winded. I felt fatigued almost immediately, most likely because of the 55 degree water. The cold made it more difficult to breathe, and my muscles felt very stiff.
Seeing Marc struggling made it obvious to me that we had better get out and walk the rest of the way back to the park. But the current was so swift that for every five feet closer to the shore I could swim, I was swept 50 feet downstream. I'm an average swimmer at best, and being dragged that quickly over rocks along the river's edge is scary, not to mention painful when you crash into one.
I guess Alex was doing alright, since he was way ahead of us, but I knew Marc was in a fair amount of danger when I began to see the fear in his eyes. I wasn't exactly in fantastic shape either, my muscles extremely fatigued and lungs burning. We floated past a set of stairs, but we went by so fast that I couldn't grab the railing in time. I was getting banged up on the rocks and unable to slow us down. I became pretty worried when Marc's head disappeared under the water, definitely not a good sign. We were close enough to shore that I finally was able to slide my fingers around a crack in one of the larger rocks along the edge and grab on. Marc grabbed hold of my other hand and I managed with a great deal of difficulty to pull us both out to safety, where we sat, out of breath, for several minutes.
Happy Swiss people kept floating by, which made me wonder what exactly we had done wrong. I was mostly just glad to be back on land. Another minute in that river may have lead to a much less favorable result.
After that adventure, we hobbled, still out of breath and with our feet cut up from the rocks, back to the safety of our blanket where Alex was waiting. We enjoyed the sun, some salami sandwiches, and the company of the Swiss, safely on land for the remainder of the afternoon.
Tomorrow we'll be exploring some of the hiking options in the hills around Bern, while ignoring any impulses to hop in freezing cold, fast moving rivers without wearing flotation devices. |
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| 5 Comments: |
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Holy crap. Stick to dry land.
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Michael! Please go back to Paris. I will pay for your ticket. Those mountain streams are dangerous...you know better. PLEEEEASE be careful. Love, Dad
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MICHAEL!!!!!!!!!!!
WHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rule number 1: Transfer ALL wisdom.
We love you - R XXXXX
PS: You are a hero. Yes, a hero.
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You are taking me with you when you do your non-touristy road trip of France.
Have fun/ be safe!
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I'm sitting here at work...not doing work obviously- and you're going to give me a heart attack! Not only could you have drowned but your stuff also could have gotten stolen out of that locker lol! Miss and love you! ...and am clearly over-worrying at times about you..but only when I read your blogs :) <3 xoxox
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Holy crap. Stick to dry land.