Yesterday we left the hostel and headed on a walking tour of Bern. With our handy map we visited Bern's bear garden first! The bears weren't out yet so we watched the keepers and listened to the bears throw themselves againt their cage doors. When the keepers let them our into the enclosures the cubs came barreling out at full speed with momma close behind. The male had his own enclosure and he came out and immediately started eating all the apples he could find from his variety of foods. We ended up spending much longer watching the bears than we meant to!
Next stop was the clock tower, which was lack-luster from what our guide book described. We walked through the old town passing the parliment building and fountains galore. Then headed to Zurich.
In Zurich we had to go on a hot chocolate treasure hunt for this tiny cafe Sam Brown went to on "Sam Brown Europe". It supposedly had amazing hot chocolate, the best in Switzerland! So we grabbed a city map from the tourist office circled the street we needed and started the expedition.
Luckily the city's main street was closed for a bicycle festival! So it made our walking time super quick. We took a few side streets and back allies then tucked away in a corner was Chocolatier Shober. We order 2 of their classic hot chocolates with cream. They were GREAT! BEST HOT CHOCOLATE EVER. We both were making those little "yummy" noises the whole time! Totally worth the hunt!
From Zurich we spent 4 hours on a train to Munich. We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Munich because all of the hostels were booked for Oktoberfest. It was ok though, because our hotel was very nice! We tried to go to Oktoberfest, but silly us...it was the weekend. All of the beer tents were booked up. So we settled for the next best thing, the beer hall of Hofbrauhaus! (Also a Sam Brown reccomendation) the beer hall can hold 3500 people and esentially is set up like Hogwarts' main hall. Long wooden tables and benches, where you slide in anywhere there is room. We each ordered a stein of beer (1.5 litres!), Heather had the Radler (lemonade beer) and I had the Weiss Radler (white lemonade). We also had some typical German foods: brautwurst, potato salad, bavarian pretzels, and strudel!
We made some Spanish friends at the table next to us, they named Other Bunny "Joseph" and took a picture with him. Then some nice Polish guys sat next to us, who didn't speak a lick of English. We got along fine though and had lots of toasts and laughs and an overall good time. We got pictures with them too. As far as we could tell they were on a man-cation. They both had wedding rings on, but no wives to be found (but possibly they were married to each other?). I taught the guy next to me to spell my name and he taught me his (which I have since forgotten). We joined in the beer hall singing and table banging. And it was just an amazing experience!!
After we were thouroughly buzzed we went back to our hotel and slept the best sleep of the trip. We didn't get up until 9:00 today!!!! We showered and got to the station by noon. We had some lunch and booked tickets to Paris. We sat outside Starbucks for a while and used their wi-fi, and now we're on the train to Frankfurt. Final destination, Paris. (And yes I did make that joke on purpose)
Safe Travels!
- Kit & Heather
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