Bern!

My friends and I did a day trip to Bern last Saturday! It was known as the city of bears, because apparently they used to keep a cage filled with bears in the center of it. We got to actually go to the bear pit and see some live bears! Can you believe they still keep bears?! There were only two in the "pit," and I'm not sure why. They looks like they were prepping to hibernate.

If you look really closely you can see the bear laying in the grass to the left of that wall!

We visited a few of the churches in Bern, and they were beautiful! I'll include a couple of pictures below.

View from the central church!

Before lunch, we all visited the Musée D'Histoire de Berne.

We were in there for over two hours! They had exhibits on the Stone Age, 15th and 16th century Bern, and Art history, too. I took some photos of some of the interesting displays.

(Bad quality- it was dark in there) The paintings that run along the edge of the ceiling represent each of the different cantons of Switzerland.

The Heraldic bear - Augsburg 1583. This is a small watering can! On festive occasions it stood in the center of the basin over a central coat of arms.

"The Villmergen Bear" Bern, 1714. It celebrates Bern's victory over the Catholic enemy in the Battle of Villmergen.

The following three photos are from a series of paintings entitled "The Dance of Death." This motif of death arrived in the 14th century; rich and poor, men and women-death levels them all. The Dance of Death was painted in Bern by Niclaus Manuel on the cemetery wall of the Dominican convent between 1516 and 1520. It was then fixed up by Albrecht Kauw in 1649.

"Fall of Man and Old Covenant" - Expulsion from Paradise/Moses Receiving the Tables of the Law

"Advocate and Physician" - The physician makes a diagnosis by inspecting the glass of urine.

"Warrior and Whore" - Mercenaries fought for foreign princes. Prostitutes stood low on the social scale.

An old medicine chest! This shows the extent of the medicinal knowledge of the time. Plus, look at how ornate it is.

"Vanitas Still Life" - An allegory of vanity and the transience of life. The book in the middle features the Fall of Mankind, which is the origin of sin and death. A monkey is pointing towards the vanities of the world: money, gold, playing cards.

After the museum, we had FONDUE! It was delicious.

A panoramic view of Bern

View from the bridge

Brianna and me

Jennie, Brianna, me, Ellis

A delicious macaron shop! Arguably the best macarons I've ever had. And that's saying somethin'!

champagne, chocolate bergamot, and raspberry

That's all, folks!