Cities, lakes and the mountains - All in a days work.

Its a Glorious day outside.

Its our second day in Switzerland. The morning has dawned and brought with it, this view of the mountains through our apartment window.

With the recent dramatic views of Bern fresh on my mind, I decide to spend the morning

exploring its Old Town. Bern is an hour away from Interlaken, by train.

Kids Playzone in the IC train.

On the Intercity train to Bern, I get talking with the very friendly Ticket Inspector, as he sits down across the aisle to validate our Swiss Travel Passes against our Passports. Not that the Swiss Pass needs any validation if purchased online (Print At Home option), but they do check your passports once.

However, he clearly doesn't think much of my plan to spend the day in cities and near the lakes.

"If it was me, I would be up in the mountains in such lovely weather. The weather is about to turn bad tonight, for the rest of the week."

"Go up in the mountains."

The best made plans are the ones that are flexible. Thanks to our Swiss travel pass, we are not committed to anything concrete. So with the help of our new friend, the TC, we shall make some modifications.

Outside the Bern train station - The Bahnhofplatz.

Its 9:30 am. We have a little over 2 hours to spend in Bern. With no concrete plan at hand, I download a self-guided walking tour from www.frommers.com.

From the train station we turn left and walk into the Altstadt - the historic Old Town of Bern.

The Bagpiper Fountain - The Pfeiferbrunnen.

Marktgasse with the arcaded shops.

Clock tower

Love how the bright red trams lit up the grey old buildings, passing under the towers.

Its 10 o'clock and the clock starts chiming. But there's nothing much happening with the display.

Frommers tells me this is where the Theory of Relativity was written.

We continue right upto the bridge on the river Aare.

To peek at the bears in the bear pits.

Then retrace our steps towards the Cathedral at the Münsterplatz...

... where a group of senior citizens are playing some interesting game.

A little ahead, there's a game of chess in progress as well.

We end our walking tour at the Bundeshaus - the Parliament building.

All in all, the Frommer's walking tour is really well composed, and we thoroughly enjoyed doing this walk on our own.

By now its almost noon. Back to the train station where we grab some sandwiches and depart towards Thun for the next part of our plan - a cruise on lake Thun in a paddle steamer ship.

While walking around Bern, we have downloaded the summer schedule for the ships departing from Thun from the BLS website:

https://www.bls.ch/d/schifffahrt/fahrplan.php

Our train reaches Thun at 12:20. Enough time to make it onto the BLS Blümlisalp paddle steamer which departs at 12:40 from Thun.

I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

The hour long cruise brings on dramatic views of the beautiful Thunersee and its lovely villages against the backdrop of snow covered mountains.

I am unable to decide which ones of these photos are more beautiful and which should go on my blog. Could somebody help me choose?

By around 1:30, the town of Spiez makes an appearance.

As it draws nearer we can see why our friend the TC called it the Bay of Europe.

This is where we disembark.

The beautiful promenade leads to the Spiez castle.

Too content lying here, cant be bothered to go inside the castle.

Its time to move on again, though. The mountains are waiting.

Another short train ride brings us back to Interlaken by 3 o'clock. After what feels like a long long walk, for which the kids had to be bribed with icecreams, we find the Harder Kulm funicular station.