Bern is the capital of Switzerland and the fifth most-populous city. Bern is located on the Swiss Plateau. The Old City, or the original city, was located on a hilly peninsula and was surrounded by the Aare River on three sides. Our local guide said that Bern became the capital in 1848. We had a local tour guide for one morning and spent more time wandering around Bern on our own. It was a nice town to visit.

We found out something interesting from our local guide. If you notice how wide the street below is, it has a story. But first, the drinking fountains.

Drinking fountains were the only source of water available in Bern until 1860, so after they became the capital city. The water is still good today.

Remember that Bern was surrounded on three sides by the Aare River. Way back in time, the city only built a protective wall on one side, the one side without the river. Outside of the protective wall, they built a moat. In the photo above, the wall was the right side. In the photo below, the city wall was on the left side.

In 1405, Bern was destroyed by a fire. The town was trying to decide how to get rid of all the rubble of the town in order to rebuild. Someone came up with the idea of putting all the fire rubble into the moat which was right there. They filled up the moat with all the fire rubble and today, it is a main street and a nice wide one too. I thought that was quite creative, though it left them without a moat for protection. I liked their clock tower too.

The Cathedral of Bern was started in 1421, but then it started to lean. All the problems caused it to not be completed for almost 500 years, in 1893. It was dedicated to Saint Vincent. It has stained glass windows that were made from 1440 to 1460. It's a Catholic church.

The next photo is the Parliament House. It was built in 1902 but over time, an additional wing was added on both sides of it.

The next three photos were taken as we walked around town. You can see the river in all the photos since the river is on three sides of town. Bern is a very nice place and the fall color was nice too, though we were a little early for full color. You can also notice the beautiful color of the Aare River, courtesy of glacial runoff.

There's a story that the founder of Bern decided to name the town after the first animal that he saw. The first animal was a bear which is the symbol of Bern. I think in some language, bern equals bear. At any rate, Bern has had bear pits throughout town since the beginning. But bear enthusiasts or animal lovers objected to them in small pits. So today, Bern only has one Bear Park and only has three bears. The main area is big enough, but it has a bear tunnel that allows them to go to a hillside overlooking the river, so they have room to roam. The bears are a very popular attraction in Bern. Below are two of the bears in the main section of the bear area which also has a hidden cave area for them to be in if they want to get away from all the tourists.

I will confess that I was disappointed at first when I saw this beautiful building with "Casino" on it. It turns out that it is their Concert Hall and when it was built, our local guide said that casino just means "a place for entertainment". It was never for gambling.

Albert Einstein lived in Bern for three years. It was during that time that he developed his Theory of Relativity, amongst other things. He lived at Krarmgasse No. 49 in Bern and that house is now a museum to showcase his life and work, restored to the period when he lived here.

Additionally, we found a statue of Albert Einstein sitting on a bench in town. We had nine people in our Switzerland tour group. Eight of us took a photo sitting on the bench next to Einstein. Need I say more?

Wandering around town, I found lots of houses to take photos that appealed to me. The one below was down near the river.

Most things in Switzerland are on the expensive side, including food. We, however, found that it could be quite cheap to get a very nice snack to keep us going as we waltzed around town. You can see our choices in the bakery behind Vicky. Our only problem was that the birds thought they were entitled to a share of our food.

The Rose Garden is a very nice park. It used to be a cemetery. Bern seems to have a tradition of people going to the Rose Garden to watch the sun as it sets over the town and the river. We enjoyed the experience with a nice crowd of people.