Germany Archives - Isaac Church // isaactchurch.com

Day 8 – Bern, Rheinfall, Deutschland

Isaac Church — Sun, 19 May 2019 03:59:39 +0000

This morning, we awoke in Bern as we began the eighth day of our travels in Europe.

Breakfast - Hotel Waldhorn

First, we ate breakfast at Hotel Waldhorn. As a way to promote tourism, all travelers spending the night get a free Bern Ticket, which gives you free public transit, as well as access to two funiculars and an elevator to the top of Berner Münster, the city’s massive cathedral. [We forgot about the cathedral part; we’ll get to that later…]

Bern Old Town

Immediately after breakfast, we checked out, and walked from our hotel to the old town of Bern, which took about 15 minutes. The weather was nearly perfect today; one could wear a long-sleeved shirt and no jacket and be comfortable walking the hills all day. We spent the better part of the day walking around Bern and seeing the sights in this picturesque city.

Bern

Bern is the capital of the Swiss Confederation, and of the canton of Bern. It is the nation’s fifth-largest city, with a population of ~660,000. Bern, founded in the 1100s, is the city of the bear. The city has kept live bears since the 1440s, and currently has a large riverside park, Bärengraben, that houses four brown bears. Since the bears now have a more spacious home, the former medieval bear pits house a gift shop and performance venue.

Coat of Arms

The river Aare, a tributary of the Rhine, curves through the city. Pedestrians often swim in the river on a hot day.

View out our hotel window

City of bears

Our hotel

Closed violin shop

Most of the city has stone promenades. These are original from the 1400s, when they replaced wooden buildings after a widespread fire. You can walk throughout the entire old town without ever stepping out into the weather.

Bern

Bern is often called the city of fountains, with 700+ water fixtures, almost all of which are potable.

Bärengraben

The city of Bern’s namesake is an ancient word for bear. During medieval times, the citizens kept bears in a pit in the middle of the city. Now, the city has built Bärengraben on the edge of the river, with plenty of room for three brown bears to roam, play, eat, and sleep. Under these conditions, bears will actually live 50% longer because they have access to better nutrients and medical care.

We visited the bears twice: once in the morning and again in the afternoon.

Trying to get comfortable...

Bärengraben

rosengarten

Before we headed back to the city center, we took a walk up the hill to Rosengarten to take in a nice view of the city.

Zytglogge

The Zytlogge is a medieval mechanical astronomical clock that was once a guard tower and a prison. The city finally converted it into a clock tower after the Great Fire of 1405. We arrived at the tower just before noon, and witnessed the mechanical display on the hour. It’s very impressive technology, considering its age!

Zytglogge

The Zytglogge is a 15^th century astronomical clock. Before “Zytglogge“, locals referred to the prison tower as “kebie” (“cage”) or the reconstructed tower as “nüwer turm” (“new tower”). The clock must be manually reset every leap year.

I found this helpful diagram online:

YouTube video of the clock:

Berner Münster

After seeing the clock tower, we headed to the Berner Münster, the Swiss Reformed cathedral that towers over the town.

We toured the inside, and then climbed all 309 steps to the top (only realizing later tonight that we could have ridden the elevator with our Bern Ticket).

The Bells

Marktgasse // Lunch

Climbing all those steps made us quite hungry. We descended from the tower, and walked down to Marktgasse (Market Street), and browsed through the local market, picking up a variety of delicious free samples, and some not-so-delicious-and-very-spicy tapenade. We bought a Süss from Gateaux du Vully, which was a sweet butter cake topped with toasted almonds and served warm.

Süss

Giant lemons

Bern Marktgasse

Gateaux du Vully

Bern, Switzerland

I would go back, if just for the Süss pastry.

* – Would definitely visit again

** – Exceptional, must visit if you’re in the area

*** – Worth making a special trip to eat there

For more info on food ratings, click here.

At a local bakery, we bought three items to split: a pretzel cut in half and filled with butter, a croissant-shaped pastry that was filled with a cinnamon mixture, and a Madeline sandwich filled with apricot jam and dipped in chocolate.

Pretzel

Croissant-thing

Madeline

Sparrows feeding on our crumbs

We walked around a bit more, saw the Swiss Parliament building (Bundeshaus), and then dropped in a Migros restaurant (think restaurant section of Whole Foods) to grab two sandwiches: a tomato-arugula-parmesan and a salami-olive-cheese to eat later. We also got a mini-waffle from a street vendor for an on-the-go snack. Nearby at the main transit interchange (Bundesplatz), we caught the #9 streetcar back to our hotel – about a 12 minute ride. I nervously maneuvered the car out of the underground garage, and we returned to the roadways.

Kloster Königsfelden

We started driving to our next destination, stopping at Kloster Königsfelden, a monastery in Windisch, along the way, but we decided not to go inside.

Kloster Königsfelden

Deutschland

From the outset of this trip, we were determined to visit all six countries on our list. [If you’re keeping track, we’ve only been to three so far, and it’s now Day 8 of our trip.] Our original plan was to visit the picturesque lakeside citys of Lindau/Konstanz, Germany Monday. However, in an effort to cut down on drive time, and to be able to more thoroughly explore Appenzellerland, we’ll unfortunately have to cut Lindau and Konstanz from our itinerary.

Fortunately, we had to drive through Germany to get to our next destination, so we still get to check the country off our list! We tried to find a place to take a picture with a German flag, but apparently the Germans are not as proud of their flag as the Swiss are.

Deutschland

Rheinfall

About an hour later, we arrived near the towns of Schaffhausen and Neuberg, and as we parked our car, we could hear the thundering of water in the distance. The Rhine Falls (Rheinfall) are Europe’s largest waterfall by volume, at 490’/150m wide and 75’/23m high. It was a very impressive site, but just about as touristy as Niagara Falls, so we continued on our way towards our hotel in Kloten, just north of Zürich. We also saw an enormous mastiff there.

Rheinfall

Mastiff

Dinner - Chickeria

In Pfungen, we stopped at a Swiss fast-food restaurant called Chickeria, which specializes in rotisserie chicken and fries. It was very good, and even beat out Chick-fil-A in our minds (which is really saying something)! I got a half-chicken and Faith got a basket of drum-ettes. We attempted to go in the Migros next door to buy some chocolate, but it was already closed at 18:00 on a Saturday.

If I haven’t mentioned it already, Switzerland [for the most part] comes to a screeching halt from 18:00 Saturday to 10:00 Monday morning. I’m sure it’s nice for them, but it’s very frustrating for anyone trying to make even a simple purchase during that time.

Chickeria

We managed to find a Co-op gas station that was open, so I filled up our rental car, and then we went in an adjacent Aldi Suisse that was thankfully still open for a bit longer. We picked up some Callier dark chocolate and two lemon yogurts for later, laughed at two tween boys who tried to sell us a plastic toy they found on the ground for CHF2.00 “because we were American”, and then continued on our way to the hotel.

Hotel Allegra

We arrived at Hotel Allegra just north of the city of Zürich in Kloten, Switzerland, and checked into our room around 18:15. The hotel is very modern, and is only a short distance from the Zürich Airport.

Maps

Here are some maps showing our travels for today. One is of the city of Bern, and the other is our travel from Bern to Zürich.

Goodnight

Tomorrow, we’ll explore Zürich, and try to dodge the rain. Thanks again for following our travels. Comment (or ask questions) below if you’d like! We’ll respond as we get the chance – once we get home, probably.

Rheinfall

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Introduction, Part 2.5 – Europe 2019

Isaac Church — Thu, 09 May 2019 14:00:35 +0000

Meta-Intro

First, I’d need to apologize for dragging out this introduction into three parts. I originally intended to be brief, but somehow got carried away. I guess that’s what happens when you live in Boone with little-to-no sunshine for the winter months.

You can catch up on my unnecessarily long introductory posts below:

Teaser

Overview

That said, I’ll make a concerted effort to keep this post short: it will just contain a few final notes before we begin our actual journey.

Final Notes

Since I promised I’d be brief, I’ll only give three last minute “housekeeping”-type items:

We’ll try to send out our blog daily. However, bad Internet connection and lack of sleep might get in our way some days. Don’t worry; we’ll catch up!
Please be lenient with us on spelling/grammar errors…I’m usually trying to write the blog and bulk-edit photos at night when we’re exhausted from the day’s events. I promise we’ll correct them eventually. Thankfully, Faith can proofread for me some.
As mentioned in my second introductory post, I’m planning on adding a few new features to the blog. Whenever I do, I’ll highlight it using an alert box like the one below:

Example This is an example of an alert box. Click the [X] in the upper right-hand corner to close it.

We hope you enjoy following our travels through central Europe. We fly out of Charlotte at noon on Saturday; it’s almost time!

If you haven’t already, click below to subscribe to our posts. We should be sending out daily emails, but things might get delayed a bit for reasons mentioned above.

Vaduz, Liechtenstein

The post Introduction, Part 2.5 – Europe 2019 appeared first on Isaac Church // isaactchurch.com.

Introduction, Part 2 – Europe 2019

Isaac Church — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 16:30:26 +0000

Welcome back! Before I proceed, if you haven’t read the first part of this introduction, click here to do so now.

If you weren’t able to read Part 1 and require a recap, Faith and I are traveling to Europe this May for a late honeymoon.

The Big Reveal

Now that we have all the formalities out of the way, I suppose it’s time to reveal our destination–er, rather–destinations.

On May 11, 2019, we will fly out of Charlotte-Douglas International Airport (CLT) and land in………Toronto. “But wait”, you say, “I thought you said you were going to six countries. You do realize that only one country borders Canada, and that’s the US?”

Patience, patience. I’m not done with the story yet… After a hearty four-hour layover in Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ), we’ll board yet another flight, this time overnight, and wake up as we land in………Zürich, Switzerland!

Zürich, Switzerland

Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

Destinations

Okay, sorry for all the drama; I promise I’ll stop now. Now I must reveal the answers to my clues; but first, the official list (with official names in official languages) of the countries we’ll be visiting, sort-of in order:

Swiss Confederation (Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft/Confédération Suisse/Confederazione Svizzera/Confederaziun Svizra)
Italian Republic (Repubblica Italiana)
French Republic (République Française)
Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland)
Principality of Liechtenstein (Fürstentum Liechtenstein)
Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich)

Bonus points to anyone who can name the four official languages of Switzerland without having to look it up.

Clues Revealed

Three places I will be revisiting are: Chamonix Mont-Blanc, France; Martigny, Switzerland; and Valle d’Aosta, Italy.

Chamonix, France

Torgnon, Valle d'Aosta, Italy

Martigny, Switzerland

The other facts revealed:

Liechtenstein, obviously, is one of the ten smallest countries in the world – coming in at #6. Liechtenstein is only 160 km² (about 61 mi²), has the world’s lowest unemployment rate (1.5%), and has the highest GDP per capita (USD$141,165.08 as of 2010, which is 1,118% above the world average).
Bears and beets are quite prominent in Switzerland, (as well as in a popular TV show).
Switzerland has four official languages, which explains the aforementioned commonalities.
The languages we’ll likely run into are German (both Swiss German and Standard German), Italian, French, Romansh, and Franco-Provençal.
The cities that have hosted the Winter Olympics are Chamonix, France (1924) and St. Moritz, Switzerland (1928 & 1948). Lausanne, Switzerland will host in 2020. Since writing my original post, I’ve determined we likely won’t make it to St. Moritz.

Destinations

Since everyone is now sufficiently enlightened, I’ll give you a rundown of our plans:

From Zürich, we’ll drive south to Luzern and the Berner Oberland region of Switzerland [2 nights], and then cross the border into Italy’s Valle d’Aosta [1 night] via the St. Bernard Pass.
From there, we’ll travel through the Mont Blanc Tunnel into France.
From Chamonix Mont-Blanc [2 nights], we’ll circle back by Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) towards Bern [1 night].
We’ll spend our final days in Kloten [3 nights], a northern suburb of Zürich.
With Zürich as our base, we’ll travel east to Liechtenstein/Austria and north to Germany.

[Images linked to sources]

Omissions

Feel free to skip this section for a quicker read…click here to move on.

Faith and I are both ecstatic for this trip, but it is worth mentioning the locations we won’t be able to visit on this tour of Switzerland. As I was planning this trip, it really hurt to pass over some of these cities/regions, but there is only so much one can fit into a ten-day excursion.

Northern/Western Switzerland

Geneva – We’ll miss attractions such as the Reformation Wall, Olympic Museum, United Nations, International Red Cross headquarters, and more.
Lausanne – Lausanne is one of my all-time favorite cities. I heard one author describe it as “a real-life version of Chutes and Ladders“. It has everything: beautiful views, a lake, mountains, shopping, history, chocolate, cheese, technology, and more. We might be able to squeeze in a day trip, but it’s not likely.
Titlis – Located in the Uri Alps, Titlis is a mountain home to the world’s first cable car, as well as several glacier caves.
Basel – This city on the German/French border of Switzerland is a cultural hub with lots to do, plus easy access to the Rhine and the other two countries.
Neuchâtel – Home to Neuchâtel cheese and Neuchâtel Castle, the city is also near La Chaux-de-Fonds, the watchmaking capital of the world.

Southern/Eastern Switzerland

Zermatt – This auto-free village, accessible only by train, is the threshold of the Matterhorn, one of the most famous peaks in the world.
Titlis – Located in the Uri Alps, Titlis is a mountain home to the world’s first cable car, as well as several glacier caves.
Lugano – The largest city in the Italian-speaking Ticino region of Switzerland, Lugano is home to lake-and-mountain views, and is also considered by many to be the culinary capital of Switzerland, largely due to its Italian influence. Lugano is location right across the Italian border from the famous Lake Como, and is about 80km NNW of Milan.
Southeastern Switzerland – We will miss St. Moritz, Andermatt, Arosa, Chun – home to Europe’s highest railway – the Bernina Express, the Swiss National Park, and most of the Romansh-speaking region.

Sorry for being long-winded, but I included the above section for a couple reasons:

I wanted to have a written record of everything I would like to cover in future trips.
I wanted to give you some idea about how much there is to do and see in Switzerland, or Europe in general.

While I certainly can pack a lot into an itinerary, I often have to make very difficult decisions so we can maximize our time abroad.

New Additions

Since this trip marks a new era for Church Trips, I thought I would do a few things differently, or at least include some things I haven’t in the past. So, new inclusions for this trip include:

Maps to show our routes between destinations, and just to show where we are in general. I may post screenshots of these, or simply link to a mapping service like HERE WeGo or Google Maps.
Lodging – several of you have asked to see more pictures of where we stay. In the past, I’ve typically only mentioned our accommodation’s name in passing. I usually don’t see a need to share details about domestic hotels, since they’re largely uniform, but international accommodations tend to be a bit more unique, different, and noteworthy.
Videos – While I don’t have the desire, time, equipment, or battery life to shoot and edit videos by myself, I’ll include some links to videos that will allow you to further explore and better appreciate the places we visit.
Links, in conjunction with the aforementioned videos, to third-party websites that includes information about our destinations, such as culture, traditions, cuisine, travel, history, and more.
Suggested additional content you would like to see…comment below [or on any of my posts], and I’ll try my best to include the content you request.

As promised, here are two maps – admittedly missing a few stops because my computer was being finicky:

As always, you can subscribe to our travels via email newsletter. Click the button below to do so. There is no need to re-subscribe if you have followed us before.

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Germany Archives - Isaac Church // isaactchurch.com

Day 8 – Bern, Rheinfall, Deutschland

Breakfast - Hotel Waldhorn

Bern Old Town

Coat of Arms

Bärengraben

Trying to get comfortable...

rosengarten

Zytglogge

I found this helpful diagram online:

YouTube video of the clock:

Berner Münster

The Bells

Marktgasse // Lunch

Gateaux du Vully

Bern, Switzerland

Kloster Königsfelden

Deutschland

Rheinfall

Dinner - Chickeria

Hotel Allegra

Maps

Goodnight

Introduction, Part 2.5 – Europe 2019

Meta-Intro

Teaser

Overview

Final Notes

Subscribe

Introduction, Part 2 – Europe 2019

The Big Reveal

Destinations

Clues Revealed

Destinations

[Images linked to sources]

Omissions

New Additions

Subscribe