Italy/Switzerland - Day 12 ( Complete Lake Como & Start Bern, Switzerland)

Got up early to make sure we caught a 9:00 train! Breakfast was great as always at the hotel and we were glad that we picked up a little "thank you" treat for our breakfast butler. We grabbed our bags, checked out, and headed to the train station. Fortunately, the rain held off and we were able to stay dry until boarding the train.

The train ride from Italy to Switzerland was out of a movie. Sweeping hills, ragged peaks, flowing rivers, and huge lakes made the 4 hour train ride pass quickly! The Swiss trains are so much quieter and smoother. They also give you information in 4 languages, including English, so we knew where we were and when we should be getting off the train.

Arriving in Bern was a bit of a culture shock. It was not what we had imagined and was much larger than preferred. It has the edginess of a large city: different groups on certain street corners, organized, nonviolent protests, shopping plazas galore! To go from quaint little Como to this was unexpected. We still enjoyed passing the time here, but all in all, we wouldn't come back unless we were just passing through.

We crossed all the major bridges, including the Kirchenfeldbrucke. This bridge provides a pretty cool vantage point of the city. We took a ton of pictures of the infamous clock tower and the cathedral. The town's buildings were definitely German in style, but had a modern edge to them. I thoroughly enjoyed taking pictures of the flowers at the Botanic Gardens and the Rose Gardens. On our way home from the Rose Gardens, we stopped by the Bear Park. Oddly enough, bears are the symbol of the city and they have three bears that live in a large park in the city center. Kind of fun to see!

We saw all of the major sites this evening and had dinner at McDonalds because it is outrageously expensive here. Even McDonalds cost me 12 dollars for a single meal. Yikes! I also kept speaking in Italian. My brain has not accepted that I am in a different country yet!