Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
A nice option to travel back in time is a trip to the medieval city of Murten. There, the typical structures of cities belonging to the house of Zähringen have been preserved. You can explore the small castle with good views on the lake Murtensee, you can walk through the historical Berntor gate and best of all: you can climb on top of the old city walls and walk around the city – with marvelous views on the roofs of this old town.
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After exploring Bern, you might be ready for a refreshing hike in its neighborhood. The first address for this is the local mountain, the Gurten. It is especially a good option as you can have a wonderful view on the city from up there and you can easily reach it by the funicular Gurtenbahn. The Gurten is 858 meters high and located in the neighboring community of Köniz.
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It’s a unique pleasure I’ve so far only observed in Switzerland: citizens jumping from bridges and floating in rivers through their cities. But who would want to blame them when the river is so clear and has such a beautiful color like the Aare? It is the longest river of Switzerland; it originates in the Alps and runs into the Rhein.
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It is one of these interactive museums you can only love and enjoy: the museum of communication at Bern, Switzerland. It was founded in 1907 as the museum of the Swiss Post and is today a large playground about all facets of human communication. It is very modern, well designed and it activates and involves the visitors.
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The history museum of Bern resides in an impressive building created until 1984 in historicism style. It exhibits collections about the early history of the region and spectacular findings over the centuries (like the statues hidden in the iconoclasm of 1528). This includes archaeology and ethnography, but also numismatics.
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The Kunsthalle of Bern is just a small exhibition space for art that has been opened in 1918 and is used solely for changing exhibitions. A visit there can be amazing if you get to see a fantastic exhibition or rather boring if you come at the wrong point in time. Reviews of the museum vary extremely – but how could it be any different?
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Who doesn’t know Albert Einstein? He was the most renowned scientist of our times. A special episode of the life of this theoretical physicist was when he had a dull job in the patent office of Bern. Some of his most important works were finished during this time and in that phase, from 1903 to 1905 he was living in a flat in the famous Kramgasse.
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One of the oldest art museums of Switzerland is the Kunstmuseum at Bern, located next to river Aare in the north of the city center. It dates back to the year 1879 and is located in a beautiful renaissance revival style. But for sure the people are coming for what’s inside: from Franz Marc to Paul Cézanne, from August Macke to Lovis Corinth.
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The Mattelift is a simple elevator at Bern which you’ll find attached to the Münsterplattform close to the cathedral. It is part of public transport and connects the city center with the lower quarter Matte which was in old times a zone for the lower class and crafts like tannery. Locals call it the Senkeltram – a tramway going up and down on a lace.
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I still remember that day when I had some hours of layover at the airport of Zürich, Switzerland. I decided to have a short trip to the city center and entered a Euro banknote into a vending machine to buy a train ticket and what came out was not only a ticket but also some spare money in a strange currency, the Schwiizerfranke. Yes, Switzerland is in the center of the European Union but not part of it and for sure it has its own currency. How could I not have expected that?
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