Chocolates, Snow & Fondue (V) - Dec 2016

Bern Clock Tower

I like old towns.  My wife likes me to plan excursions to old towns. So, one old town that we visited was Bern. 

I didn't realise Bern is the capital of Switzerland! I only did research on Bern that it had a rich history with nice old town buildings. Going to Bern is also to visit the Einstein Museum to understand more about this great scientist.  An easy train ride from Zurich to Bern and it was very fascinating when we took the tram from Bern HBF to the Museum and the tram meandered past all the old building and stoned pavements.  

My only impression about Einstein was E=mc Square. So much of science lessons had returned back to my science teachers.  We went to venture into the Einstein Museum and understood more about his public and private life.  What caught my attention most were the love letters written by him to his first wife, and then what happened to them when their relationship got bitter.  Human relationship is a complex matter.  We saw that their love letters were very sweet, and we wondered why their relationship turned so bitter.  For me, I know it takes time to build and takes more time to enrich a relationship.  Just like watering a plant, or even from a seed, it takes tender loving care and time to nurture the plant.  Not easy.  In fact, it takes lots of patience.  However, if you treasure the relationship, it is worthwhile.  

On our way to Einstein's house (also a museum), we passed by the Clock Tower.  We took some pictures with the Bern Clock Tower.  There were times when the day was foggy with mist.  I actually wondered why clock towers were so important in old towns. Posing at the pavement was also risky as we didn't know the pavement was also used by bus! We nearly missed a bus coming out from our back when we were happily setting timer and posing.  At this time of blogging, I also discovered one thing - the statue at the fountain was actually a bear in armour! Dunno if my wife had told me before.

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My wife said there were some bears around. So we tried to stand at the bridge looking out for bears.  Where were the bears?  Didn't see any.  The bears were supposed to be kept in houses - and this thought really puzzled me.  The air and the cool greenery were perfect place for hibernate - did I joke about this with my wife?   As there were no sightings of bears, we saw a bear statue and I asked my wife to take a photo with the bear instead.  Haha. 

It seemed that there were many different statues to look at and well, obviously I missed some of them.  My mind was focusing on the Christmas Markets again.  Not chocolates, fondue or snow here.