Swiss farmers' fair

My job does have its perks...you may remember last year when I spent an afternoon in the beautiful Emmental region visiting a cheese factory and cattle farms and eating my way through a gigantic cheese and meat platter? Well, I spent last wednesday morning visiting the BEA, the annual Swiss farmers' fair which took place in Bern this year. It is a very popular event that takes place for 10 days and I was lucky to get a free pass through work and decided to get there at 9am to beat the crowd.

The exhibition center in Wankdorf (just outside Bern) is huge and there were many different exhibition halls with different themes. Needless to say I spent a lot of time with the farm animals and near the food stalls! Here's an overview of what you could have spotted at the BEA:

A hair brush for cows

a rather scary 1100kg bull

seriously cute cows

and the proof that cows do actually sleep!

a novel way of "roasting" piglets

and some seriously chic birds

The Swiss horse show was taking place alongside the BEA so you could sit down to watch demonstrations of how clever trained equids can be!

My favourite part though was the dog section where you could spot many of the Swiss dog breeds, most of which are working dogs

Farming is not just about animals and there was a very nice hall decorated with a vegetable landscape that included an artificial river with remote-controlled boats!

There was a small but interesting section with some traditional clothes and crafts

and last but not least, a detour through the food court was compulsory before leaving!

Now, if only every day at work was like this...(sigh)

Zibile-Märit

On the fourth Monday of November, Bern host its Zibele-Märit or Onion Market. During the one-day festival,  over 100 tonnes of plaited strings of onions, onion sculptures and winter produce are for sale on over 700 stalls.

Stalls outside the House of Parliament (Bundeshausplatz)

The Zibelemärit has taken place in Bern for nearly 200 years, originally as a part of a two week long autumn festival called Martinimesse which dates back to the 1400′s. Although the Martinimesse, disappeared the Onion Market remained.

Officially the market opens at 6 a.m., but selling starts at 4 o’clock. Hard-core onion fans are up and shopping between 4 and 6am, before the coaches drop thousands of tourists off. The onion market has its own fashion accessory, brightly wrapped strings of peppermint candy are worn around every neck.

For the rest I'll let the pictures do the talking!

Stalls also sell confetti for the Konfettischlacht,the great confetti battle, which starts at 4 p.m.. The Konfettischlacht, during which children chase each other through the streets armed with plastic hammers, marks the end of the selling market and the start of the evening’s festivities.

 But as the good wino French person that I am, my favourite part of the day remained the Glühwein!!

I will be back for this great Swiss tradition next year!

A morning in Bern

Birds drinking in a public water fountain in Bern

Happy Sunday one and all!

You may remember that I went to Bern for a job interview last Tuesday. I still don't know whether I got the job but I thought that I'd share with you some of the pictures I took. My interview wasn't until 2pm, so I decided to take a mid-morning train from Zurich to leave me a couple of hours to have a wander around the old town.

The Swiss capital is named after bears (Bären), and bears are featured on the city's flag and coat of arms

As soon as I left Bern train station, I realised that Bern was very different from Zurich. It is of course much smaller (despite being the capital of la Suisse) and the old town has almost managed to retain some sort of village feel to it (mind you a very wealthy village...). I turned into Bären platz and found myself in the middle of a very big market.

I did not set off with a particular route in mind so I ended up following the groups of tourists in front of me, thinking they probably knew where they were going. So, I walked past the Swiss Parliament building...

... the cathedral (it was such a shame that it was being cleaned/renovated so I could not take a picture) and this beautiful house next to it.

The old streets of Bern are lined with beautiful statues and colourful water fountains

I also spotted a few of the many churches in the city centre



Church of Sts Peter and Paul




Nydegg Church

 The Nydeggbrücke bridge connects the eastern part of the old city to the new part. You have very nice views of the city's rooftop from the bridge

Returning to the old town, I walked past the Rathaus (not sure what this building is?)

I then walked on Kramgasse towards the Zähringen fountain and the clock tower (Zytglogge)

This is the view of the clock tower from the other side (there is a lot of building work going on in the city centre at present and it proved to be a bit of a challenge to take decent pictures)

The architecture in the old town is beautiful if not quirky at times like this little house below

or this facade

Judging from my guide book, this is just the tip of the iceberg that is Bern and I can't wait to return with Mr T to go and visit some more! Mind you, if I get this job, I should have plenty of time during my lunch breaks to go and explore Bern...