Suisse

From France we headed off to Switzerland. It was an 8 hour drive, so we decided to break it up a bit. We stopped in Dijon, France and stayed in a motel room with 6 bunk beds, a fan for AC, and one bathroom and a shower. It was roughing it, so to speak, and I think it was good for the kids. I remember staying in an airport hotel when traveling back from Europe when I was a teenager. We were sleeping on the floor and it wasn't great, but it made me stronger! In truth, I think Ian thought this place wasn't bad at all.

We arrived in the evening, but needed to stretch our legs, so we walked around the industrial part of Dijon for a bit and found an IKEA and a McDonalds. There is truly comfort in what you know, and this wasn't more apparent than when we visited McDonalds. We went to the fast food joint in Europe four times during the trip, and that was three more times than we've been to the restaurant this whole year in the states. Ha! Below, Ian is showing us that in France, McDonald's offers nectarines. Delicious!

We drove through a city where a stage of the Tour de France was held. This was so neat to see. Jess was in cyclist heaven. We'll have to get him in France during the Tour sometime.

Our first stop in Switzerland was the Bern, Temple. My family tried to find this place when I was a teenager and we could not find it using physical maps. Turns out the temple isn't really in Bern, but rather in Zollikofen, a suburb of Bern. Maybe that's why it was so difficult to find, but thanks to GPS and smartphones we got there in a jiffy. This was a great stop!

We ventured off to the city of Bern right after. The historic downtown was very cool, including this very old clock that had moving parts and was fun to listen to and watch.

 

We walked through the streets and visited a church.

After lunch, we took a walk and looked at the river and peered at the bears that are kept in the city. The views were spectacular. The water was beautiful. 

The river was going pretty fast. We watched as people jumped in and traveled with the current as they floated along. I seriously would have done this had we not had two younger kiddos with us who aren't strong swimmers. Instead, we walked down and dipped our heads in.

Attached to our Bern hotel was a mall. One evening, I went with Ian and Elsie to the mall. It was wild to see Switzerland prices vs. France prices. Needless to say, Switzerland is expensive! Still, they had these fun photo-op spots that the kids loved. Here, Elsie poses with the posies display. Fun!

We visited the Bernisches Historisches Museum/Einstein Museum. It was free that day too (thanks free museum Tuesdays!) and very well done. The information there is given in German, French, and English. Traveling in Europe truly made me want to be bilingual, no wait, trilingual.

We finished off our visit to Bern on a nature walk and then back to the river. Then we took off to drive for another 2ish hours to the alps via Interlaken.

Next up: Interlaken and Kandersteg.