Bern Switzerland, March 24 - 25

I left Milan in the morning, in a light shower. What a wonderful city.

I took the train north then west to Bern. The tourist information office was most helpful. It was a special night in Bern - Museum Night. Once a year all the museums stay open and for about $25 you can visit them all.

This is a very popular event. The museums were PACKED. I visited a few.

Schweizerisches Alpines Museum - Swiss Alpine Museum
Kunstmuseum - Museum of Fine Arts
Einstein Haus

The only thing I can compare this night to is First Night. There were street performers, people giving talks at the musuems and the museums were lit up, which made it easier for us non German speaking people to find them.







The Alpine Musuem was interesting. They had lots of displays concerning the alps. In one room there was a telescope that looked down on a huge model and you could look at certain features of the alps, as if you were very high in the atmosphere.

There were two speakers which I listened to. Both were mountian climbers but they were from different eras. One man was in his mid 60's, talking about the gear he used. He held up items that were from the 1970's and 1980's and the other man, that was much younger (30ish) held up the gear that they use today. I have no idea what they were saying but I'm sure it was about the advances in the gear used to climb the alps.

The fine arts museum was packed full. I mean, it was hard to even get into it. After one floor of being herded like cattle, I got the hell out of there.

My last stop was the Eistein Haus.


"Once the apartment of Albert Einstein, it was here where the great scientist developed the theory of relativity in the first decade of the 20th century."

That how this 'home' is described. It is the upper floors of a nice two family building. I am sure that many people lived in it after he had moved away and once his theory was accepted and he became world famous, the inhabitants were given the boot. It is a nice replica of what the inside of his home looked like, with pictures and period furniture... I touched the fireplace mantle and the fireplace stone and other items that appeared to be (structurally) original, so that I could touch what he might have touched (100 years ago).

There are displays of notes and letters he wrote. The information that caught my eye concerned his wife, Mileva. They met in Zurich, while they both attended the university. His letters to her and to others expressed his deep love for her and thankfulness for finding her and being with her. The displays never explained why many years later he divorced her to marry his cousin. (Fame corrupts?)

She was an competant mathematician and many people are certain that she worked many hours 'proving' his equations. I doubt she made the breakthrough for or even with him, but her efforts helped him create his theory faster than he could have on his own. When they say that behind every successful man is a woman - they are talking about Bert and Mileva.

Every day that he left to go work in the patent office, this is what he saw as he stepped out on the to the street and looked to his left.





This is a cute clock that puts on a show a couple times a day. Huge faces and very clean. But then, wouldn't all clocks in Switzerland be spotless.

On the morning of the March 25th, I walked around the town, looking for souvenirs, and checking out all the watches clocks and cuckoo clocks. This is a very nice city. There are lots of places to eat and shop and plenty to see and do. To bad I had to catch a flight from Geneve to Lisbon that afternoon.











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