Bits and bobs

No I haven't fallen off the edge of the world. I just haven't had much to say; we didn't quite make it to Geneva last weekend. However, we did visit our first Swiss curry house and we visited the capital, Bern last weekend, so it's time to bring you up to date.

Swiss Curry!

There's an Indian restaurant quite close to where we live and the last couple of times we'd walked past it, the smell was heavenly. So we decided to pay them a visit on a cold Friday night. Foolishly, we both ordered a large Feldschlossen as soon as we sat down, before they could tell us that they had both Kingfisher and Cobra. Doh'l! Never mind. Now, the way they do things in Switzerland when it comes to currying is a little bit different. The menu has a bunch of sauces on it but rather than picking one to go with your taste in heat, whatever you order, they ask you how hot you want it. They have "levels" - one, two or three (three being "how an Indian has it"). Now we didn't quite understand this bit at the time (I'm thinking what if you ordered a level three fahl, you see) but basically, you could have a butter chicken at level three or a madras at level one. Weird! We both went with lamb, really can't remember what the sauce was but it was very tasty. I went with a level two, Claire with a one and I found it thoroughly tasty, but I might go for a three next time. All very good. And now we know how it all works, next time'll be even better!

Ski Gear

You might remember me saying that we were planning on going to Geneva. It was such a crummy day that we really didn't feel like a long drive, but we jumped in the car anyway as Claire needed to hire her skis and boots for the season. That's how it's done out here. You rent stuff for a season, bring it back in May. Or keep it and rent it for another season. It's great for the kids, obviously, because it's utterly pointless spending a fortune on gear that's only going to last them one season. Great for Claire, too, because neither of us is certain how well our knees are going to hold up...

The idea was, go get the ski gear sorted and then head to Geneva if we felt like it. Bad plan! Going on a saturday was a nightmare. The world and their dog were all there getting their kids sorted with skis, boots, skates, all the winter stuff and the queues were massive! Thank goodness we didn't leave it until November, when it allegedly gets really busy. I think we were there for about three hours and I just wanted to go home afterwards. Claire has a lovely pair of lilac Volkis, since you asked, and a brand new pair of boots, which she can then buy if her knees hold out. It's a pretty good system and works out quite cheap. It's been a while since I hired gear when skiing, but I seem to remember it being about sixty quid a week or so? We've paid about three times that for six months. Someone is making a lot of money out of ski hire.

Bern - the Nation's Capital

On Saturday, we drove down to Bern to have a mooch around. There's nice big Park and Ride just off the motorway, with plenty of spaces so that's what we did. And I'm glad. Traffic was very ... interesting in Bern. The old town is very narrow and cobbled. It's actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site don't you know. It's weird, because it's all narrow streets it seems really small but it's amazingly busy. It feels like a capital city, you know?

A guess because space is at such a premium, lots of the shops' cellars have also been converted into shops, so you can delve down into all kinds of establishments. It's really a very interesting place. We had a bite to eat at the Cafe Des Pyrenees (they don't seem to have a website) on Kornhausplatz and I thought it was wonderful in there.

We headed on down the Nydegggasse towards the bear pits, which I really wanted to see. Bern is named for a bear, you see, and for many years they kept bears in pits at various locations around the city. The last place was just over the Nydeggbrucke at, funnily enough, the Barengraben. Now of course they don't keep them in the pits anymore. Not since 2009. Now they're roaming "free" on the bank of the Aare, in a little bit of open ground. They can still get at the old pits if they want to, apparently. Papa bear (Finn) is seperated from Mama bear (Bjork) and the two baby bears (Urs and Berna) by a great big metal fence. He hasn't been respecting her need for peace recently. Sounds like most blokes to me! It doesn't look to me like they have that much room there but I know nothing about animals so I'll give these guys the benefit of the doubt. Here's a picture of Finn.

And here's a picture of the old pits. Can you see the rings attached to the walls? Can you guess what they're for?

We headed back up towards the bahnhof, stopping to take a look at the rathaus and a lovely church, then stopping for a coffee at Starbucks. Much as I hate loath and detest Starbucks, they do have nice coffee, and their cinnamon roll things are amazing! Final stop before getting a bus back to the car park was for bread and fondue mix. Yes folks, we have a fondue set! Niceness!

We are almost certainly going to Lausanne or maybe Geneva this weekend. Somewhere where they speak French, anyway. The weather forecast is promising, so we'll see what's what. Oh and tonight we're going to the Herbstmesse, Autumn Fayre or something. Apparently it's an annual gastro-fest. Three hours of wine tasting coming up!

A very exciting weekend

You know, sometimes you have nothing to do for a weekend, and other times it's a non-stop festival of fun! Last weekend we had fondue and cocktails (and hangovers), a glorious afternoon's walking in the mountains and a very exciting visit to a very impressive geological feature. I was too tired yesterday to do anything except recover from the excitement.

Fondue and cocktails

Friday night was a cheese-soup-fest with some friends. The fondue was greatly enhanced by the addition of caipirinhas to the mix, as indeed were our hangovers. In Switzerland you can actually buy a pack of fondue mix which you then just whack into the fondue and start dipping (once it's melted down a bit of course). Very civilised. Lots of wine and some beer was also consumed by yours truly, so much of the latter part of the evening is a little bit blurry...

Kandersteg and Oeschinensee

So it was in a somewhat hungover state that we drove down to the Alps on Saturday, arriving at about half twelve in Kandersteg. It was, frankly a bizarre journey through three different weather systems; fine but pretty cold in Basel, then once we came out of a tunnel into Schwiezer Mittelland it was a horrible grey heavy sky, which didn't bode well for the proposed day's siteseeing (I was suggesting a detour into Bern instead) and then we came out of another tunnel into the Berner Oberland and it was a glorious sunny day! It was lovely; there we were all kitted out with multiple layers, waterproofs, hats and gloves and we were down to shorts and a tee-shirt within seconds of getting out of the car.

A short cable car ride up into the mountains later, we set off on a very gentle downhill walk, very well-paved, towards Oeschinensee, along with most of the rest of the local population. There were a million barbecues running, people fishing on the lake, even some lunatics paddling in it! A very very pretty sight as you can see from the picture above. Not as favourite for me as Bachalpsee, but pretty lovely nonetheless. We had sandwiches and a snooze and then wandered around the lake, where there's a lot of wood-carvings carved from felled trees and roots; it's really quite good fun. Another snooze at the far side of the lake and we were ready to walk back down the mountain to Kandersteg, which was actually pretty darned steep but only took about an hour and then we wandered around Kandersteg for a bit, stopping for a beer at once place. New Beer! Egger. Very nice. and then onto another little place by the river where we had a very large pork schnitzel, chips and what we think was boiled fennel, but we could be wrong. The beer in this place was called Gurten beer, which I didn't like nearly so much as the Egger. Home and chill on the sofa.

Rheinfalls!

Now I've been wanting to visit the Rheinfalls since we arrived. According to Wikipedia it's the largest plain waterfall in Europe, whatever that means. It's 120m wide and 23m high and the flow is between 250 cubic metres per second in the winter and 600 in the summer, so I guess it was closer to the lower end when we visited. But still so loud! We had a very pleasant drive to get there, along the Rhine for the most part. At Koblenz, we went over the confluence of the Rhine and the Aare, which are both pretty big rivers, so that was interesting. We went on one of the tourist boats out to the big rock in the middle of the falls and stayed there for a while taking it all in. There's something very primal about waterfalls, I don't know what it is, but they're very ... watchable? I don't know, it's kind of like a bonfire in as much as you can stare at it for ages and ages and it's almost hypnotic. Or does that make me sound like a pyro?

Anyway, so we walked around and over the falls (there's a footbridge just upriver) and took look at them from the castle there, Schloss Laufen, where they've built all kinds of special viewing points practically in the waterfalls but they charge you to get to them and we figured it wasn't really worth it, then we got another tourist boat back to the west side, which is where the car was parked. I was all for getting something to eat at the snackbar there (and by something I mean kalbsbratwurst and chips) but Claire convinced me to wait til we got home. Roast Pork. Hmmmm.

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That's it for this post. We've got Switzerland vs. Wales at Joggli tonight and we're talking about heading down to Geneva at the weekend, so I'll have another very exciting post for you very soon!

Culinary delights

Not much to report to be honest, we've had a bit of break from doing stuff, we had a little cycle ride, about ten miles, out to the Tierpark Lange Erlen on the other side of the Rhine on Sunday but that's been about it. We have found a new very nice cheese though, Bernkase, which is like a very mature cheddar but a little softer. And we ate out last night at the most expensive restaurant we've yet visited in Basel, the Zum Shutzenhaus, which was well worth the price. Claire and I both had schnitzel and fries and it was simply delicious. The best schnitzel I've ever had. And I've had a lot of schnitzel. It also came with these delightful aubergine and cheese fritters which I know sounds awful, but were actually lovely. That's it, I'm afraid, longer post next week I suspect as we're off to Kandersteg at the weekend (weather permitting). We might even take some photos with our new Lumix to awesomeise you with.