D030701

On the Road Again

July 1, 2003

Dear Friends and Family,

We are heading out on the road again. Some of this is the same as the last "Road Trip": we're unemployed (for the summer vacation), we have little more than a general direction, we'll still live out of our small car. This time however, we have a maximum time defined by our jobs. For Marianne that means the start of the new school year in the last week of August. For me, it may mean even a week or two before that -- but I hope not.

On the first of July, we started on our "general direction" of Switzerland and northern parts of Italy. It was a rainy autobahn drive with expensive rest stop coffee and little else to remark on. Just before entering Switzerland, we were reminded that this would be a real border. We needed to pay a Swiss road tax ($30), buy a big magnetic "D" sticker to identify our car in this non-EU country, and get out passports and car papers. The crossing itself was pretty uneventful and we didn't even have to show that paperwork. It's better that way because our German car papers and American personal papers can cause delay while we explain why we're not international car thieves or senior drug dealers.

We passed through Basel just inside the border and left the autobahn for a side road. After all, our car fits side roads best of all. We stopped at Delemont for lunch and discovered that we had to change both our currency (Switzerland is not a euro country) and our language. Here, near France, the local language was a form of French. "A form of French" because it certainly wasn't Paris-standard. Fortunately, euros and English were accepted at the pub where we had pasta and pizza. This was a good introduction to this mixed-up country: Italian food with a French flavor; French language with a German flavor; and restaurant prices approaching those in New York City.

After lunch, we headed toward Bern, where we had downtown hotel reservations. We managed to be delayed by a half-hour traffic jam getting through the double-named "border town" Biel/Bienne -- this was the boundary between French-Switzerland and German-Switzerland. At least there were no new taxes for this crossing and pretty soon we were on the freeway to Bern, Switzerland's capital since individual cantons formed the country.

Despite its capital status, Bern only has about 120,00 residents. The central downtown is squeezed into a loop of the Aare River, in the same layout it's had for hundreds of years. Today, the narrow streets are lined with arcades of expensive boutiques, antique stores, hotels, and restaurants. Our guidebook had promised us that this was window-shopping heaven &endash; quality goods from throughout Europe and the world and "everything too expensive to buy". The recent 25% devaluation of the US dollar only heightened the situation, but the windows were, indeed, a treat.

Our two-star hotel was described in Rick Steves' guidebook as a "crank 'em out" place with a good, central location and, for Bern, reasonable prices. True again. But from that base, we could see the standard tourist treats: the 1530 clock, the 1421 cathedral, the parliament building, and the bear pits. The last was a holdover from the days when Bern, which means bear in the local dialect, kept mascots just outside the gates to the city to impress visitors. Now, it just raises the ire of the local Free-the-Bears activists.

It took us a full day to both see places we wanted to in Bern and to plan how we would attack the next few days of our travels. In the end, our plan was simple: go to the mountains and see what's there: a plan to not plan too much.

All in all, this has been a good restart to traveling. We may have a more fixed deadline, but we'll keep to our preference for the ad hoc and cover what we can.

Take care and don't over plan.

John and Marianne

ps: some picture highlights:

A typical road shot. Forgot the flash was on. Truck passed at just the right moment. But, peeking out from behind the truck is part of the monument at the Frankfurt end of the Berlin Airlift.

Another road shot. This one warns that everyone must have the road tax sticker - a 40 Swiss Franc charge.

A typical street in downtown Bern. Shops line arcades along both sides of the streets.

This is a famous clock. I'm not sure why because all it does is clank a bit. But tourists crowd around every hour because their guidebooks say it's a required stop.

We have seen many churches. However, this one had restored the paint and gilt on carvings and this made the entrance unique.

Even the statues beside the door were painted. This gave them a human dimension.

I volunteered to climb the church tower and was treated to interesting views of decorative piers along the buttresses.

The climb allowed up-close examination of the details of this 800-year-old building.

From below, gargoyles are little pips on the side of the building. Up close, the artistry of the stone carver jumps out.

I hate heights. My favorite part of the climb was this door which led to the way out. Marianne was smarter and simply didn't volunteer for the adventure.

Bears are the symbols of Bern and a few have been kept in pits just outside the bridge into the center of town. Animal rights advocates are upset but the tradition goes back hundreds of years.

Our hotel, the Goldener Schlussel. A plain hotel but a great location and the only one downtown that was even near our price range.
www.goldener-schluessel.ch

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This page created on a Macintosh using PhotoPage by John A. Vink.

	A typical road shot. Forgot the flash was on. Truck passed at just the right moment. But, peeking out from behind the truck is part of the monument at the Frankfurt end of the Berlin Airlift.		Another road shot. This one warns that everyone must have the road tax sticker - a 40 Swiss Franc charge.
A typical street in downtown Bern. Shops line arcades along both sides of the streets.		This is a famous clock. I'm not sure why because all it does is clank a bit. But tourists crowd around every hour because their guidebooks say it's a required stop.
	We have seen many churches. However, this one had restored the paint and gilt on carvings and this made the entrance unique.		Even the statues beside the door were painted. This gave them a human dimension.
I volunteered to climb the church tower and was treated to interesting views of decorative piers along the buttresses.		The climb allowed up-close examination of the details of this 800-year-old building.
	From below, gargoyles are little pips on the side of the building. Up close, the artistry of the stone carver jumps out.		I hate heights. My favorite part of the climb was this door which led to the way out. Marianne was smarter and simply didn't volunteer for the adventure.
Bears are the symbols of Bern and a few have been kept in pits just outside the bridge into the center of town. Animal rights advocates are upset but the tradition goes back hundreds of years.		Our hotel, the Goldener Schlussel. A plain hotel but a great location and the only one downtown that was even near our price range. www.goldener-schluessel.ch