Wolfish's World Adventures: Bern, Lucerne, and the Swiss Alps

Before I dive into the past two weeks of adventures I need to begin with what has been going on in Geneva lately. Now that we've hit the dog days of summer it is festival season in Geneva and there is plenty going on. One of the biggest festival attractions is the Ciné Transat, which is a film festival where the films shown are voted on by Geneva's residents and the winners are shown every Thursday - Sunday night outdoors at Parc de la Perle. It is actually really nice and scenic, especially if there is a cool breeze blowing in off the lake. I went to the opening night of the festival to see an old favorite of mine, The Goonies. For those who have not had the pleasure of seeing the movie, here is a little clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45_Xg3lto_I

And here they are today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOUXa5RERPQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oyc5tAhOGU

Overall just a great movie and a nice way to the spend the evening relaxing after work.

Two weekends ago my whole group went on a full day excursion with our Geneva program coordinator to Bern, Luzern, and then through the Swiss Alps. It was a whirlwind day that began bright and early at 7 am at Gare Cornavin, where we met up and caught the train to Bern. I should mention that we were all quite fortunate that our coordinator here is good friends with the former director of the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose son now works for the Swiss Tourism Board and was able to gift us student passes for the Swiss Rail entirely gratis. This was really a big deal since these passes are usually CHF 412 so we were quite lucky that this worked out. The only catch is that you have to travel on non-consecutive days, which is one reason why we crammed so many things into one day. Anyways, back to Bern...we arrived around 9 am and had a few hours to explore the city and see the administrative buildings where the Swiss National Council meets and then see parts of the old town and even the bears of Bern! You definitely get the sense that you are in the German speaking part of Switzerland and no longer in the French speaking part, mostly due to the architecture. Bern is also situated on the River Aare, which is crystal clear since it originates in the Bernese Alps and it makes for a very scenic setting for the city. Since we only had a few hours to sight see, we did not see too much, but it was nice to explore for a little bit.

The Swiss Confederation National Assembly building in Bern

Panorama view of Bern with the River Aare and the Bernese Alps in the distance

From Bern we got back on the train to go to Lucerne, which is about an hour east of Bern. Lucerne was also really nice and we had about an hour and a half to walk around the Chapel Bridge and the old town of Lucerne before we boarded a boat to cruise around Lake Lucerne. The lake is pristine and I wish I could have gone swimming, even if the water was frigid, since the temperature outside was quite hot. The origins of the Swiss Confederation are found on Lake Lucerne as it borders the three original cantons of Switzerland, Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden. The town of Rütli is the traditional site of the founding of the Swiss Confederation and also borders the lake. Once we arrived on the other side of the lake, in a town called Flüelen we got back on a train, albeit one with a panoramic car this time, to head up to Göschenen, where we transferred onto the Matterhorn Gotthardbahn line for a ride through the Swiss Alps down to Brig. The Alps were pretty breathtaking from inside the train and I can only imagine what it is like outside the train. In Brig we caught a train back to Geneva and we arrived back a little after 11 pm, exhausted and worn out from a long day of touring.