Bern – Pretty. Expensive. Pretty. Boring.

Now I will preface this blog entry by saying that I am well aware that I definitely could have gotten more out of Bern.

I arrived in Bern following a pleasant 6 hour train ride from Munich that had followed an evening where I had experienced the sound of worlds colliding in the form of some American dude snoring on the bunk above me. I got very little sleep, but snoozed on the train. Upon arriving in Bern I walked to the hostel, and saw that Bern is – like all European towns- a very pretty place. However it is full of little expensive shops and middle aged people shopping for useless trinkets and overpriced clothing.

After arriving at the hostel and dropping off my bags I went back out to get some food, and after walking nearly all the way back to the train station for the nearest supermarket was greeted with horrible service and a whole lot of attitude. I then came back to the hostel and used the internet, always intending to go out at night, but got caught up with a few things and never went out again.

The next morning I woke up and really needed to do some washing. There were no facilities at this hostel, so I needed to walk to one about 2 kms away. It was a pleasant walk along the river, the sun shining but not terribly hot. I paid over ten euro to get a medium sized load of washing done, and most of my socks were still damp. I then dropped my washing back at the hostel and again went out for food. I was really craving asian food at the moment and chose a noodle and sushi place. I ended up paying close to $AUD30 for what was effectively a chicken curry rice from Hans café. I then came back to the hostel and continued reading my book while I waited for my socks to dry.

Okay. So that’s what I did in Bern. Now, what I would have done, had I known about it earlier is float around the river. It’s a beautiful clean river and the locals seem to be floating around all the time. As I didn’t have a full day here, that was never really a possibility, but it would be fun and cheap. If I was loaded it would probably be quite fun to go out in Bern, as there are plenty of bars and restaurants, but being as I know I’ll drop a few hundred euro rafting and bungy jumping in Lauterbrunnen, I’m trying to keep a check on the spending.