Bern and Lucerne

 Dear Gentle Readers

Today we ventured into Bern's Old Town to see what we could see.

First stop was the Zytglogge, another astronomical clock. Like the similar one in Venice, it too tells the time, date, day of the week, position of the sun and moon, zodiac sign and moon phase.

However, the clever amongst you may notice that this is from the medieval times when the belief that the Earth was the centre of the universe and sun, moon and stars revolved around it.

The figures to the right of the clock animate every hour, striking the hour and other movements.

This is a typical street in the Old Town. As usual, tourists everywhere.

The obligatory cathedral with typical Gothic architecture and flying buttresses at the side.

But down below...

markets selling food from just about every country on Earth. This photo is only a very small portion of the markets which stretched up the side streets from the cathedral.

Bern has lots of fountains with statues commemorating famous events. This one, the Zahringerbrunnen features a bear in armour commemorating  the city's founder Duke Berchtold V of Zahringer. Bern is named after the first animal killed by said duke, which was a bear, so Bern=bear.

But this one, the Kindlifresserbrunnen intrigued or let's say, horrified us the most. You may wonder why until I show you the enlargement below.

Kindlifresserbrunnen literally means "Child-eater fountain". Yes that's right, it's a giant or ogre eating a child with a sack full of other children for later on. Legend has it was a warning to naughty children, in the 16th century frightening figures were often used to scare children into behaving. One look at that and I would be the best behaving child in the world!!

Bears feature predominantly in Bern and they even have a "Bear Pit" with live bears. This one we observed pacing back and forth in his enclosure.

Everywhere in the Old Town were these doors leading off the street, angled up as you can see in the photo.

They lead to cellars under the shops where goods, wine, wood and even coal could be delivered without having to go through the shop. They had either steep stairs or ramps. We saw some that had been converted into fancy restaurants.

This is the Aare River that loops around Bern's Old Town. The beautiful blue-green colour comes from the Alps where glaciers grind the rock into rock-flour and when suspended in the water results in this view.

In fact, Bern Old Town sits on a peninsula almost completely surrounded by the river as you can see in the picture. This is the reason the city founders chose this location in the 12th century as it was easily defended against invaders.

Here's Victoria enjoying coffee in a sidewalk cafe in Bern.

And your erstwhile scribe also enjoying his coffee.

These are Bern's City Measures, standards that merchants and buyers could use to ensure they weren't being cheated. From the top down they are:

Conversion bar from Bern foot to Swiss foot;

Swiss shoe;

Mother shoe of the City of Bern (official standard);

Mother ell of the City of Bern (cloth unit);

Metre measure;

Double metre measure.

We saw many troops of soldiers marching down the main street. All Swiss men from 17-19 must enrol for active duty in the armed forces. Women can to but it is optional for them. Every house is expected to have at least one weapon and the the training is refreshed every two years. The militia can be activated with very little lag time because of this, even though Switzerland has rigorously maintained its independence from any warring faction.

We then drove to Lucerne to see the second most photographed thing in Switzerland after the Matterhorn, the Chapel Bridge, a wooden bridge built in the 14th century bridging the river from the Old Town (on the right) to the other side of the river. As you can see it is very long and that tower is the Octagonal Tower.

It is a water tower but it has been used as a jail and grain storage in it's lifetime. It predates the Chapel Bridge by a century or two.

All along the inside of the bridge are these paintings set under the roof, commemorating events of which I have no idea. In 1993, a fire destroyed the middle part of the bridge and all those paintings were lost. The bridge was rebuilt retaining its style but the paintings could not be replaced. Amazing that it could stand for 6 centuries then get damaged in our own time.

The other major sight we saw in Lucerne was this, the Lion Monument, described by Mark Twain as the as: "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world". It commemorates the members of the Swiss Guards who were killed during the storming of the Tuileries Palace during the French Revolution. Around 600 guards were killed while defending the Royal Family, including King Louis XVI.

It features a dying lion, pierced by a spear, lying protectively over a shield bearing the French royal fleur-de-lis. Beside it is a second shield bearing the Swiss Cross. It certainly moved us with its sadness. It's carved out of the side of a sandstone cliff.