Kelly's European travel blog - Bern, Switzerland

After 10 days in France, Kelly and her family travelled to Bern in Switzerland and took in the wonderful sights and attractions the area has to offer.

After enjoying our short stay in the French countryside, we headed to Switzerland's capital, Bern. Despite being the country's capital, Bern only has a population of about 128,000, giving it that 'big country town' feel, whilst still providing all the services of a city.

We arrived right in the middle of ‘football fever’ with Bern playing host to all of Holland’s group matches in the Euro 2008 Championships. We would have loved to have got tickets to a match (Holland played Romania the night we arrived), but they were as rare as hen’s teeth, so our first stop was the Fan Zone set up in the city centre.

Dutch soccer fans in Bern

The city was a sea of orange – Dutch supporters were out in force – and the atmosphere was great. The city had really got behind this major event – streets were adorned with banners and flags and shop windows were decorated with everything football related.

During our stay in Bern we also took in some of the sights – Gurten Park set high above the city is a popular place for relaxation and for kids to play, and the funicular (train ride) to the top gave us our first tasted of Swiss engineering. We also enjoyed Bern’s vast array of shops, wandered through the beautiful old town, along the Aare River, and checked out the city’s symbol, a brown bear, in the Barengraben (Bear Pit).

An afternoon’s outing took us to the Schwarzsee (Black Lake) where we enjoyed lovely scenery and a pleasant walk around the lake.

After four nights of ‘city living’, we then drove to Lauterbrunnen in the Jungfrau region, about an hour away from Bern. Since first visiting Lauterbrunnen 20 years ago on a Contiki tour, we have returned a couple of times to this gorgeous village that we love. The scenery here in the valley is stunning – we never tire of it. Lauterbrunnen is surrounded by huge rock walls with spectacular waterfalls and at the end of the valley is the huge Breithorn, snow-capped even now when the days in the valley reach 30 degrees C.

Swiss Alps

If you want to be active there is an endless choice of things to do, and as we planned to see as much as possible, we bought a 6-day Jungfraubahn Pass which covers rail and cable car travel to most of the major alpine resorts in the region.

We visited the Schilthorn (where the James Bond movie ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ was filmed in the ‘70s), and walked back some of the way along beautiful alpine paths. We even bought home made yoghurt from a farmhouse along the way – delicious!

Other trips took us to Grindlewald, a lovely town above Lauterbrunnen where we took a cable car ride to Pfingstegg and then enjoyed luge rides at the top, before lunching on the sunny terrace restaurant; Schynige Platte, where we visited the Alpine Garden with over 600 species of alpine flowers – gorgeous! – and took in the 360 degree panorama of alps and lakes; Interlaken, the nearest large town, with a population of about 15,000; and Wengen, a very popular ski resort situated a 15 minute train ride from Lauterbrunnen.

Whilst our days have been busy, we have seen so much of this beautiful region and we’ve been blessed with great weather. After three weeks of solid rain in the region, we’ve enjoyed temperatures of about 30 degrees every day, making for great views from up on the mountains.

We are sorry to be leaving Lauterbrunnen, it really is one of our favourite places, but we know we’ll return again for more of the wonderful scenery and Swiss hospitality.

Words and photos © Holidays to Europe.