Right now we are on the ICE train from Basel to Cologne. We are hauling ass! Going FULL SPEED! The fastest we saw the screen display was 299 km/hr which is over 185 mph!!! This is a very nice train! James said when we got on that this is worth the entire price of the Eurail pass. I tend to agree. This speed is exciting. We are totally whipping past the cars on the highway to our left. The only thing it is missing is internet access. We’ll be in Cologne in about 45 minutes from where we are right now. The total travel time today will be around 5 hours from Bern.
I’ve got almost caught up on the blog posts. I still have three days to cover from when I was in Bern - skiing at Gstaad, the Stockhorn and the Zentrum Paul Klee.
Happy New Year!
Today we woke early to head up the Stockhorn. I was looking forward to seeing theh alps from such a high elevation. And, it was quite stunning. The train ride was similiar to the one we took to Gstaad, so we got some repeat scenery. We took a slightly different direction from one of the stops, and ended up in a town called Erlenbach. From the looks of it, they do a lot of logging and wood-processing. Thre were stacks and stacks of boards on pallets at what looked like a farily modern saw-mill.
Just a short walk from the bahnhof and we were at the gondola just in time. It was tourist-pricey, but worth the view. We paid about 80 Euros for the two of us - some was for the gondola right, but we also bought a 19 Euro voucher for lunch. The gondola was cool. I think there were about 20 people on board? Not packed at all. it was like riding a giant ski lift goldola.
The area at the top was quite nice and they’ve set it up to afford visitors the best comfortable view. There was a large deck facing the alps and quite a few deck chairs and lounges. The restaurant also faced the alps for the most part. We had a pretty good lunch. Nothing special, I don’t think. We could have ordered what we had just about anywhere in Switzerland. Coffee was expensive. After lunch we made the short hike from the restaurant to the top of Stockhorn. The trail was wide, but 2/3 covered with snow/ice. I had absolutely no qualms about it, but James was again being overly cautious and surprisingly dramatic about the condition of the trail. The kids complained, but we all made it ok.
The view at the top was killer. Just to grand to really try to describe. I hope I caught some of it in the panoramic photo I stitched together. I did have a tripod, but ended up using a telescope thing that tourists can pay to use. It rotated 360 degrees and seemed pretty level. It had a flat platform on top that housed my camera perfectly. Aside from the amazing view, the ride back down the mountain was uneventful. We stopped off in Erlenback for coffee before hopping back on the train to Bern.
That evening, we walked around downtown Bern a bit more and Jay and Monique took us out to a restaurant called Masenor or something like that. It was good and we had these yummy cream-cheese sauced pizza type things. I can’t remember now what they were called … We also got to try Gluhwein tonight. It’s a traditional spiced and heated wine drink that is great when you’ve been out in the cold and need some warming up.
Today we went to downtown Bern and to the Zentrum Paul Klee.
We took a walk through a dormant rose garden and met up with Caren and her kids (friend of Jay and Monique). The rose garden was high up on a cliff above the city. Although it was hazy and overcast, we still had a good view and it was interesting to see the topography of Bern.
We walked down the hill from the garden and came to the Bern bear pits. I won’t go into the whole history, but essentially Bern was named after the first bear that one of the first settlers killed? or something like that? So, in Bern they have two big holes in the ground were they keep bears for tourist to look at and overfeed. According to Monique, Bern officials have decided that the bears situation really isn’t great and they are making a new bear pit that is much bigger. The bears will feel less like they are in captivity.
Then we catch the bus to the Zentrum Paul Klee. I had never heard of Paul Klee. But, I can say now that he has some stellar art. And an amazing amount of art. He was very prolific and some years did hundreds of pieces. Although, I think the museum counts every little thing he did in their numbers. He does have a lot of really good works, and it took longer than I ever imagined to get through the museum. There was just too much to look at. The building alone was quite interesting. I’ll have to fine a picture of it, as I was too lazy to get my camera out. Actually, I just had no idea I’d actually enjoy the place when I had the chance to snap a photo.
It was well worth it, and I’ll definitely take the chance to go back.