Winter in Bern -- Ice rink on Bundesplatz

Hello again
After more than a week of stunningly blue skies, misty horizons and icy nights, the weather is about to change for a wetter, warmer spell.
I'm casting my mind back to a couple of months (December 07/January and early February 08) when we had an ice rink in the heart of the city. The Bundesplatz sported a small ice field that proved to be extremely popular. Bundesplatz is a fairly big square enclosed by the Federal Parliament Building (above, at night), the Swiss National Bank (below, left) ... the cantonal bank of Bern (below, left) ...
... and one large regional bank (below, right), as well as an upmarket restaurant (the white building with green shutters in the photos above and below) . The rink came with all the necessary infrastructure including a pavilion for a small restaurant, lockers and skate rental. Skating was free!This was fantastically accessible, unlike the ice rinks at KaWeDe and at BEAExpo so I found my old skates in the attic and had a go. Could I still do it after at least thirty years off the ice? Well, it was great fun, both in the daytime and in the evening.
Here's Yours Truly looking silly but feeling happy, ...... and my good friend, H.P., who joined me on one of the last nights before they took the rig down.

Snow! (in Bern, in early November)

Yes, I'm back! Hello, and welcome!
Tadaaaaa! Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2007, the Swiss Federal Parliament building was being unveiled after a considerable period of renovation. My tutor and friend Roselle was in town from Devon (UK) on a tour of workshops and lectures -- more of that in a separate post -- and we happened to be there. That's Roselle walking across the road and towards the beautiful gneiss slabs covering the "Bundesplatz", the town square of Bern, so to speak.


Snow is falling as I type these lines... I'm still at the office, actually (yes, I know, I'm probably well on the way to becoming a workaholic). We had the very first snowflakes last Friday, the earliest serious snowfall in some sixty years. In some parts of the Eastern Alps, two to three feet of snow fell overnight. Horribly avalanchy; I was glad we were spared. But today snow fell here and actually stuck to the ground for a bit. It'll be interesting to see how things are when I cycle home -- not to worry: I have a brilliant new bike with excellent tyres and brakes and lights. Love to ride it -- on a flat, straight stretch, it's like being a giant ... :) (ever the megalomaniac, me)

Tonight's the only evening this week that I have no commitments, so I gave myself an open-ended workday and am rewarding my diligence by producing this post in my much-lauded blog.
Which reminds me: thank you, everyone, for your praises. Keep those comments coming! :)

No snow pix, though -- night-time photography is not my forte, as some of you will know. But a few visual memories of what some parts of Bern looked like about a week or ten days ago:
What a sight this little tree was first thing in the morning! It welcomed me for a few days, until last Saturday or so. On Sunday a veritable blizzard powered through. In the afternoon, not a leaf was on that little tree, and its propeller-shaped seeds were swirling through the air.
Finally, the last of my pink campion. They were particularly splendid this summer, starting early, blooming en masse -- perhaps it was a good idea to prune them back every now and then and to snip off the seedpods...
Until next year, I hope.
Since I took that picture I've been to Scotland, had Roselle staying for a few days, and tidied up my balcony, putting in a new bubble-wrap windshield (the old plastic was torn to tatters by the high winds of a few weeks ago and no longer did the job), and generally having a good old go at the motley plant community that is largely the result of birds dropping their little loads, seeds blowing in on the wind or the most wonderful of fall-out from garden-flower/wildflower bouquets that I usually put on the balcony when they're getting a bit tired. The bees and wasps and bumblebees love it!
Very little of what's in those pots has actually been planted deliberately.

Not the most conventional Bern views -- the new Bundeshaus cupola, etc.

Hello again

Feeling a bit blah after a pretty fantastic weekend. It's a very grey, pretty chilly day out there. So I thought I'd remind myself of the fabulous weather we had last week. I remember moaning about it...
A not very conventional view of the new cupola atop the Federal Government building (above), photo taken from the "Grosse Schanze", what used to be a military fortification but is now the lawn-covered forecourt of the main building of Bern University. The next photo was taken from more or less the same point. Bern is under construction, and it shows:The above is a view of the city's theatre and concert hall, the "Stadttheater", with the same cranes as in the previous photo framing the cupola of the "Bundeshaus". Photo taken on "Kornhausbrücke", one of the two beautiful arched steel bridges crossing the river Aare.
The next two photos show a view one can enjoy only if one climbs to the top of the building in which I have my office.
Bern's great railway viaduct, a concrete and steel structure built in the 1930s, I believe. The white building centre right is the School of professional and industrial crafts (Gewerblich-industrielle Berufsschule Bern -- GIBB). I understand it was built by an architect inspired by Le Corbusier. The hill background left is the "Bantiger", with the tall needle atop a huge transmission tower for TV, radio, telephones just visible in the blue sky.A train just pulling into Bern station, hidden and tucked into the hill below Grosse Schanze (right centre). The neo-Gothic spire of the Münster, left centre. The white chain of the Alps on the horizon, the dark triangle of Eiger is quite clearly visible just right of the Münster. Two cranes frame the Bundeshaus cupola in front of the Niesen.


Last Saturday, I was MC at a friend's 80th birthday (see next post). And yesterday I worked on Saturday's photos for an album for my friend, and had a couple of friends round for drinks and dinner and a good chat. Slightly hung over today ... but it was well worth it. :)

Finally, here's my very first video showing the fabulous water fountains on Bundesplatz of Bern (took this in April, shortly after the jets were turned on again for the summer season). On a hot day in summer, kids (and adults) love to play about. Enjoy!

Here's hoping that nobody gets flooded out of their homes today.

Summer 07 -- what summer? -- in Bern

Hello again

It's cold out there! Over lunch at work we were talking of the hot days of April past when I even ventured into the river for a quick, refreshing swim. This morning -- and a late morning it was, too, more about that perhaps later -- I cycled to work wearing socks and warm shoes, long-sleeved t-shirt, scarf, woolly cardigan, coat. For the past hour or so I've been contemplating putting the scarf back on because I've felt chilly about my neck and throat. Mad, this!
A year ago we were sweltering in +30°C or thereabouts, and I was introducing a Scottish friend to the magic of our gorgeous river. We also ventured up to the Jungfraujoch (tomorrow a year ago exactly), where we chanced into friends of his from Inverness -- what a gas it was to be cavorting about in the cool snow under a perfect blue sky. Unbelievable, but true, as this photo proves:
Well, right now the view from Jungfraujoch must be of swirling cloud and white mist and in the river there's no swimming at all. These days, anyone who tries must be suicidal: the rivers in this area are all full to almost flood level, and so are the lakes. The river's waters are murky, carrying a lot of broken-off branches of trees and other debris, and hiding dislodged rocks. Only about a week ago, the police found the body of a young lad, about seventeen, who had suddenly vanished in the swiftly running river some ten days earlier, on one of the rare summery days this past June. Someone saw a body being carried down the "Schwellenmaetteli"-barrier in the "Matte". Search teams couldn't find the body until it washed up quite a bit further downstream, in one of the "combs" holding back debris and flotsam from the inlet to a small hydropower station.
Luckily, the forecast for the weekend is rather better, so, after all, I might not need to buy a rain cover for myself and my backpack for a day's walking in the Jura. In fact, they're calling for very hot weather.
This yo-yo system -- changes of over 10°C in less than a day, with the snow-line down to about 2000 m asl today, which at least might mean the glaciers aren't melting off quite so fast -- is taxing everyone: after a week of very chilly weather, we had a middling Friday and a very hot Saturday, followed by a day of rain and much cooler temperatures and doctors have noticed a lot of flu patients flocking to their surgeries.
Here, just to underpin memories of sunnier days, here are a few photos of last Saturday, when Berne saw the kick-off event to a petition drive to encourage our government to up funding of development projects in the third world to 0.7 per cent of GDP. I was helping out at the stand of one of my favourite NGOs, pbi-Peace Brigades International, far from the only one to do so:
Public attendance and interest was pretty good, and it wasn't only young people who were curious to see what was inside the boxes hanging from threads:
A helper at alliance sud's neighbouring stall:

Bundesplatz in Berne

Hello again

Spring has sprung but it jumped in with a very cold spell. Still, the Easter weekend looks set to be pleasant enough, especially if the cold northerly actually does die down.

A year ago I was on my much-loved Hebridean island of Iona -- a very different scene. I do hope to make it back to Scotland soon. Even though life here is not too bad, and I have recently had some fascinating jobs (more of which perhaps later), I long for the rugged beauty and fresh air of the Scottish west coast and the Hebridean islands. It must be the salt air that I miss most, and some of the really lovely people I met on my travels last year and the years before. Greetings to you all!

But now I would like to share with you some of the watery exhilaration that may be enjoyed in the warmer season by visitors to and residents of Berne alike. Have fun!

Remember my colourful pix from Museum Night a couple of weeks ago? Because I had lots of positive feedback on them, here they are again:
And this is what the renovated square looks like on a sunny day. The Federal Parliament building in the background, wrapped up until summer next year because of renovation work to its sandstone façade and a complete overhaul inside. The big photo on the "wrapping" shows the lantern atop the round cupola, which is now hidden below the "Grecian" triangle at the top of the scaffolding. Initially I wasn't even aware of taking a photo of a photo, but we could take this further...
But it's rare for the square to be so empty of people. The next few photos show what usually happens on a weekday afternoon.

Most commonly, spectators ring the square with its intermittent water jets:
But these two wanted to know it exactly, examining the ground to see just where the water was coming from:
...when they were caught out. A quick look back at their partner to reassure them everything is still ok:
Kids love the place, be they small...
... or a little older. Girls will happily join in the fun. The one in dark and ringed tops first walked dodging the water, then she waited in the wings for her next opportunity (left edge of photo below):
She kept rushing through the jets even though the weather wasn't all that warm:
Here she comes sprinting back again:
... and there she goes as someone else launches himself into the water...
This is spectacular, but very wet:
Pity I can't reproduce the noise of the water rising and falling.

Bye for now!