We started today with breakfast, and this would prove to be one of the most interesting breakfast sessions that we have had yet. We shared it with our hosts (Viktor and Renate), she spoke English, he didn’t, so the conversations were often three way and time consuming, but like I say, interesting. This house has only been operating as a B&B for about a month. Our hosts have only been living together for 18 months (after both being previously married) and you get the impression that she is giving this ‘pig farmer’ some direction in his life. But you also get the impression that he just can’t believe how lucky he is, to find a woman who loves farming, milking cows (by hand), feeding the pigs, and can drive a tractor!
We were told a few stories in the history of this house; it was initially built as a summer retreat for the monks to holiday and go hunting. Hunting?! And we thought that they just made beer and wrote the bible in longhand by candlelight. Although we were told that the reason for the beer, is that when the monks were fasting, beer wasn’t considered food and therefore permissible. The ultimate enjoyment perhaps, quaffing beer on an empty stomach, and then shooting a few fox.
This house has only been in Viktor’s family for the last 100 years (100 years this year). They bought it and the land cheap, because no one else wanted it. A family of four had just been murdered there. We suggested that they could promote it as a haunted house and perhaps the rats that we had heard in the ceiling, weren’t rats at all. But we were assured that there were no ghosts, as the murderer had been caught and beheaded publicly on the village guillotine! And that was only 100 years ago. We thought that the practice had finished long before then.
We asked quite a few questions about their farm, farming methods, EU inclusion (They aren’t part of the EU), and everything really came back to the same thing. They like to be independent, and they don’t see any reason to change from the way that they have always done things. To them milking 200-1000 cows was just like speaking a foreign language. Almost everything here is done by hand. As you drive through the country side, they seem to be continuously cutting grass, turning the grass, raking the grass, and collecting. The grass that they are cutting is no more than 30cm high and they seem to do this as many times as they can in the summer season.
The other question that we badly wanted to ask was whether they fed their cows hemp, as we had heard. This brought a few laughs, and the first thing that they wanted to know was where we had heard that from. And the answer is “No, only when they are sick.” Although they did feed their ducks hemp (it is included in the grain that they buy, and became evident when some hemp plants self-seeded in their back yard)
And so the conversation went on, very interesting. We could have stayed there for hours, but we had other things to see and do, today we are going to Bern (about 1.5 hrs drive away).
We walked up the main street of Bern flanked by old four level apartment buildings, with very ornate balconies, ground level shops, and cellar doors on the road level that opened and went down to all manner of quirky little shops in their basements. There were a lot of clothes shops here, but not much in the way of chain store, these are more designer and edgy. Half way along this first section of road is Einstein’s house, the apartment where he developed his famous E=MC2. Also at regular intervals down this street there are water fountains (but not as you know them). The fountains are large columns with several drinking fountains coming out at their base. Each of these columns is topped by a brightly painted statue depicting amongst other things, a bear in a suit of armour, and an ogre eating a gathering of children around his feet.
We went on up the street, past the clock and the glockenspiel (every town seems to have one), and the rest of the street seemed to be more mainstream and (dare I say it in this expensive little country) affordable. As a result there were a lot more people around, but this also may have been the result of the markets going on at the top end of the street (running perpendicular to it). At one end of these markets they seemed to be having an open day or promotional day for the local children’s hospital. There were tents everywhere set up as emergency rooms, hospital wards, a portable operating theatre, an army ambulance (with full kit), etc. There were kids running around everywhere getting arms put in plasters, bandages on legs, hearing tests, eye tests, blood tests, kids stitching up bananas, etc, they were having a ball. There seemed to be every hospital department represented there. Still don’t know exactly what it was about, but very cool for the kids, and their mums and dads.
From here we went up to the cathedral. It doesn’t matter what town, city, or village that you are in the church is always a nice place to go and reflect, no matter what the denomination. The cathedral today had an orchestra doing a rehearsal, so this added a bit of extra ambience. Amazing stained glass windows, some of which (from what we were guessing) depicted skeletons dancing with saints. The pews were all very old, many having family crests and coat of arms carved and inlaid into the backs of the individual seats. There was no obvious crypt, which was a little unusual. However it did have bells, and those bells seemed to be continuously ringing. Every 15 minutes they chimed for what seemed like 10 minutes, and the times that they rang had no correlation to the time on the clock. Maybe they had a guy in there who just pushed the button at random, or perhaps the bell switch was cross wired with the light switch just to confuse people.
As part of our way home we decided to walk past the parliament building, along the river, and then up to the rose gardens. What we found interesting about the parliament building was that for a country that is the stalwart of democracy, they do not allow people through the building for tours or for public listening, while parliament is sitting. In Germany they make a big thing about being transparent, in NZ we have a public gallery, in Switzerland it is forbidden.
As we walked along the river we saw a number of people swimming although it was obviously very cold. Actually swimming doesn’t really describe what was happening. It was more a case of diving in, being swept down by the current, then climbing out as soon as you could grab something, and then walking back to your clothes. Although we did see one guy who was obviously experienced in the practice, he took his clothes and valuables with him, slung over his shoulder in a ‘sea bag’.
The rose garden is very pleasant with people playing petanque, a wedding in progress, and the general population sunbathing … with clothes on! A sure sign that we aren’t in Germany any more.
We finished the day with and ice cream (very good – we are back in dairy country), and beer that was decidedly below average.
On the drive home we were reminded that it was Saturday night and there were music festivals going on in almost every town. In one town we went through there was a big tent set up for the Operatic Society on one side of the train tracks and a good ol’ country and Western hoedown on the other, complete with a large teepee for a tent and a newly constructed Saloon. The whole scene gave real meaning to ‘coming from the wrong side of the tracks’.
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