Featured photo is on a beautiful wooded trail in Bern, Switzerland.

Saturday, June 20th, was my 54th birthday. I woke up to a birthday greeting from Bill, and two very irreverent cards. For your amusement, I have made a very short video that offers a whiff of our love for each other…

Highbrow humor…

After he presented the above cards, we got dressed and headed down to breakfast, where we met Philippe, a very charming waiter. We enjoyed egg dishes– Eggs Royale for me and Eggs Benedict for Bill. The difference between the two is that Eggs Royale have salmon and spinach and Hollandaise Sauce, and Eggs Benedict has ham or bacon. Of course, we also had our usual coffee and juice, and we took a trip to the buffet, which offered the usual breads, fruits, cheeses, and cold cuts.

As we were finishing our breakfast, Philippe wished me a happy birthday, and then presented me with a “surprise”… a beautiful chocolate mousse cake and a card from the hotel staff! The cake was surprisingly high quality, too… we really enjoyed it over the rest of our stay at the Schweizerhof Hotel.

After breakfast, we decided to take a walk. Bern is a very attractive city, and if you walk down the main shopping drag, you can even do a lot of it covered by a shopping arcade. It was a bit crowded during our visit, but I still managed to get lots of photos…

We soon approached Bern’s famous Zytglogge, a clock tower that dates from the early 13th century. The clower tower has also served as a prison and a guard tower during its long history. It reminds me of the astronomical clock in Prague, and indeed, Bern’s astronomical clock dates from the 15th century. I got lots of pictures.

Since I’m typing this on my laptop, it’s a bit of a pain to select photos… Bear with me!

We encountered another piano busker, named Luke Gajdus. He was playing hypnotic music that was so interesting that I stood in the middle of the street and didn’t hear the oncoming bus. The buses are all electric, anyway, so it’s hard to hear them come up from behind, especially if you’re distracted. Bill had to pull me away from the vehicle’s path. And then we bought one of the busker’s CDs, called In Breath, which I look forward to uploading on my desktop computer at home.

This shopping drag took us all the way to a bridge that crosses the Aare River. It’s also where the famous Bear Park is, although we didn’t manage to spot any of the residents during our too brief time in Bern. It was probably too hot for them. I think it was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit during our visit and, as you can see, very sunny.

On the other side of the bridge, there’s a little one room “hotel” where one can book a stay. It’s called “Zollhaus”, and if you rent it, you can “sleep among the bears”. I had seen it advertised the first time I was considering a visit to Bern. Now that I’ve seen where it’s located, I’m not sure I’d want to book it. It’s right in the thick of hordes of tourists! But it is definitely in a picturesque area, and the concept is novel. There were signs nearby advertising it for rent.

Here are a few more photos of the area near the Bear Park, which is free to visit.

I think I will stop at this point and write more about my birthday in a new post. I have lots and lots of pictures, plus my birthday lunch and dinner to write about. Plus, the room needs to be cleaned.

Stay tuned for part five!