The Bern Bear

Yesterday, Ben and I took a trip to Bern with the EPFL’s XChange student organization.

city of bern over the river aare. 

While on the train to Bern, we met several other exchange students from all over the globe- Scandanavia, Vietnam, Mexico, Italy, and dozens of other countries. While it was exciting to get to know other students, listening to my fellow travelers transition effortlessly from French to English to [insert yet another language] was rather intimidating. After saying for what felt like the millionth time, “Sorry, I only speak English,” I was definitely feeling linguistically inadequate.

Despite my linguistic inadequacy, the trip itself was fantastic. The old town of Bern is remarkably well preserved, containing many structures and architectural features dating from medieval times. In fact, the entire old town of Bern is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  

Our tour guide (who, I might add, was fluent in five languages!) led us through the ancient cobble-stone streets, pointing out curious fountains, statues representing medieval guilds, and historically important buildings and churches.

fountain in front of the curia confoederationis
helveticae, the canton's capital building.

splash!

meandering along medieval streets.

long ago, buildings used to be taxed based on the number
of windows. the bottom left window isn't actually a
window at all- it's painted on!

this curious clock was a pretty impressive feat of engineering
during medieval times- it tells not only the time, but
the date, the day of the week, and the phase of the moon!

guild-marking statue of a man holding open
a lion's mouth. 

no one's really sure why this statue depicts a man eating
babies, but its been scaring kids for ages!

one fish, two fish, stone fish, ben fish!

birds in a row, hoping to steal a bite of lunch!

nearly every single window had a window box of germaniums.
I loved it!

beautiful, green city.

I think my favorite part of the city tour, however, was the bears. Although there are all sorts of legends—some mythological, some folkloric, and all a little goofy-- explaining why the city of Bern is linked to the Bear, in truth, no one really knows. The best guess most scholars have come up with is that, especially in Swiss-German, the word “Bern” kind of sounds like the word “Bear”. That, and bears are pretty intimidating, ferocious, and make for a good mascot.  

Nowadays, the “Bern Bear” is probably a tourism-booster more than anything else. In the center of the city is a large “Bear Pit”, where several bears (and lots of tourists) can be found at all times. Even though I had seen bears before, both in zoos and in the wild, I was surprised by how close I was to these giant mammals. I was also surprised, to see the bears up and moving—normally, like all carnivorous mammals, bears exhibit carnivore lethargy, and sleep the majority of the day. These bears, however, were walking about, stretching, and, in the case of the bear cubs, rolling about and playing with each other. I could have watched them for hours. 

baby bears playing!

three little bears.

the bern bear.

a wonderful city.