It didn’t start too well as our arrival in Bern in the early evening was greeted with a little snow storm.

Luckily we didn’t get discouraged and braved the cold weather to have a first view of the city center.
It was getting colder by the minute and we were about to return to our cozy hotel room when we spotted a group of people gathering on one of the central squares with, most importantly, a little hot wine stall next door. Turns out we were just 15 minutes away from a light and sound show, to be projected on the Parliament Building. It was an impressive light spectacle, telling a local story of the Matterhorn.

[See image gallery at 2young2simple.debraaf.eu]

Bern has a large homogeneous old town, which you can nicely observe from the cathedral.

The main street is especially inviting with its wide, car-free cobbled street, little fountains and view on the “Zytglogge”, a medieval tower.

Bern is however less known for its history, than for its most famous citizen, Albert Einstein. It is in Bern where he was born and where he started his career. The city has a modern and interesting museum on Einstein, whose only negative point is the early closure at 5pm, which was imposed with Swiss like perfection and prevented us from finishing our tour.

We continued our journey with a very scenic ride through the countryside, sitting in the comfortable (but expensive!) Swiss train and admiring the now snow-white landscapes.

Next stop was Lucerne, the quintessential little Swiss mountain village, perfecting the postcard view of old-town plus lake plus mountain. We didn’t know about its fame before arriving, but it became soon obvious when we arrived in town and came across more Chinese tourists than locals!

We had read about a pretty castle cum not-too-expensive-hotel and treated ourselves to a room with gorgeous view on the town (cf. title photo).

Apart from its spectacular view, Lucerne has several unique features, from a well preserved city wall over antique wooden covered bridges (with beautiful decorations) to the “Lion of Lucerne”

We continued to our main destination Zurich, visiting friends, and the chance for me to introduce Yang Ke to another insurance metropolis (and therefore a potential job location).

We took the compulsory tour via famous Bahnhofstrasse and explored the old town, but also got inspired to some culture. Zurich’s museums do not have the fame of Paris, but thanks to a lot of local money Zurich often has good exhibitions without the crowds of the larger cities. Our choice fell on a Miro exhibition in the “Kunsthaus”, which was a tad too modern for our taste, but also had lots of nice pieces.

We continued our journey across the Zurich lake with a super modern ferry boat and got introduced to the local life in a small city.

We braved the deep snow and explored the surrounding boundless nature, where first people were doing cross-country skiing and villages seemed deep asleep like in hibernation.

Graced with more sunny days we enjoyed walking along the beautiful lake and taking the water taxi across, admiring the huge water fountain.

Despite the blue sky the temperature was quite chilly, which however didn’t prevent the weather-beaten locals to go for a swim during their lunch break.

Being Yang Ke’s first steps in Switzerland we started with a thorough exploration of the local food specialties. The Swiss department store Manor is a great place for such, with an amazing floor full of delicatessen.

Swiss food is a lot about cheese and after six years without decent cheese fondue, I was very looking forward to a proper Swiss fondue. I wasn’t disappointed!

Historically Geneva is less impressive than many of its counterparts, but it scores when it comes to museums and shopping. We went for a guided tour at the United Nations office, which was really interesting. It is offered in English and French and you get to see many areas of the big headquarter and learn about it’s activities and history.

Just opposite of the UN is the headquarter of the Red Cross, including it’s own comprehensive museum.
Initially we didn’t plan to go there but were keen to see a temporary exhibition on the life of Mahatma Gandhi. The exhibition had a small but excellent collection on Gandhi and several inspiring art pieces related to his philosophy on non-violent resistance.