Bern, the city brought to you by the letter "P"

Auntie Geek and I decided to go on a day trip to Bern, the capital of Switzerland. ZDG, LGG, and I had spent almost a week in Bern in 2004 when ZDG was attending a conference so I knew that it was a very walkable city.

When we arrived at the Zürich Hauptbahnhof we were happy to wander the stalls of the weekly market. We purchased a pastry to share on the ride and enjoyed the hour-long train ride to Bern.

We loosely followed the Lonely Planet's walking tour of Bern until we realized it was way past my lunchtime. After looking at a couple of places, we decided to try the Altes Tramdepot, which was located in the same building as the Tourist Information Center near the bear pits. Yes, it is obviously a tourist trap, but it had a positive write-up in Lonely Planet, and there was beer. We shared a sampler of four beers and Auntie Geek had Rosti (hold the Speck) and I had Spätzle. We were starting to get very sleepy and warm from the beer, cheese, and calories in general and did not clean our plates (because we had to save room for pastries for the train ride home, you know).

Our next stop was the Rose Garden where we took the following photos:

Here we encountered our first "P". Let's say we ran into a fellow we thought was relieving himself, but it turned out not to be the way we thought. Later during our stroll through Bern we also encountered a protest and some panhandlers. See, not all of Switzerland is clean and orderly.

On our way back to the train station we popped into a bakery to pick up some mini pastries for the train ride home. It was a fun sisters day.