Given that tomorrow will be my birthday, and I have decided to be rather quiet about this one, I decided to celebrate this one alone. Tomorrow is a working day, and I will be rather busy, and today was such a glorious day that I decided to take a walk by the Aare.
The Sun was bright and sunny, which is the object of this picture. Nevertheless, it was a slight chill in the air enough perhaps to keep a very light jacket on if you were wearing half-sleeved shirt (like I was -- and a new one too, given that it's going to be my birthday tomorrow!). In any case, this is a section of railing just by the Aare (I'll leave you guess in case you know Bern intimately!).
Bern is not a low-lying city, its close to 500m high; and most of the city looks down onto the Aare. And if you are walking by the Aare, like me, most of the time you'll be looking up. This gives a wonderful way to study the bridges.
People like bridges --- at least I do. They are a wonderful feat of engineering, and sometimes standing on them can give you quite a view below. There are quite a few bridges in Bern joining the parts of the city cut deep into two parts by the fast flowing Aare. While in the medieval ages it had served as a natural defense against invading enemies, now-a-days they have been stitched by these bridges. Take a look at some of them.
In the backdrop of the river and the small houses, the bright sunny sky, the cool weather, I was having a very pleasant time. It reminded me of the last birthday, spend in the Austrian Alps and in Innsbruck attending a conference. Incidentally, that was a Sunday, we had a wonderful conference lunch and followed by a nice walk down the mountain into the city of Innsbruck, and then an intense physics discussion with Uwe and Mike Creutz in a quaint bar.
Well, anyway coming back to the present, you really can't help noting certain things by the river. One was the certain stale smell of fish coming from the river -- this was a bit strange, I had never quite experienced that before in this part of the Aare. Certainly there were quite a few people fishing, though, which probably meant quite a fishes were around. At some point there was lots of gushing in the water, which made me look closely as if some big fish was sneaking up on me; but to my disappointment it turned out be some water outlet in the side of the river that was pumping out water. Another was this tower. Apart from the graphiti, this was a piece right from the Middle Ages.
The strong current of the river is often harnessed for power, I suppose -- you get to see these small embankments across the river, like this one.
Very soon the path turned a bit rocky, going over to the northern part of the city where the river twists and turns a lot. To my surprise, the road led to quite a dense wooded region -- this was already beyond Felsenau and going towards Tiefenau. It is indeed surprising that I have been here in Bern for almost two years now, and I hadn't come
along this path even once. Well, so much for that! Here is a view from in between the dense trees, looking into the river -- which you can make out by the strong reflection.
Initially, I had decided that I will walk all the way to Bremgarten, where the river turns and flows to the west, and then come to a place from where I can cross the Bremgarten forest into Bumpliz Nord and then finally to my house in Bumpliz Sud. But shortly beyond this point (as shown in the picture to the right), I decided that it was a bit too much.
This is one of the fleeting decisions that I sometimes make. I promised myself that the next time I would start from the other direction and make all the way to this point. On the way back, it was a simple matter to find the station Tiefenau and take the train back. In fact, the superb train/bus connections in Switzerland make these kind of trips really worth making.
Anyway, if you travel a bit onward, you quickly come to Worblaufen which is the kind of the north-eastern border of Bern. This is where Albert used to live. To the left is a picture taken the Friday before last, when I was visiting their place. This is one of the high bridges connecting the parts of the city to the neighborhoods dissected by the river. This is an inverted perspective from the rest of the pictures before.
Whatever happens, this is one of the birthdays I will never ever forget now! This year has been very nice to me, life has been nice to me in some ways, for which I am grateful; and not nice in certain very cruel ways, but I cannot complain about that. Certain things are too heavy to be changed, they are better accepted as they are. Well, Happy Birthday to myself!
Note added a week later: The reason for editing
is like of the most amazing co-incidence that has
ever happened. The very next day after I finished
writing the blog was going to be my birthday. I had
ordered this, what you see to the right, several weeks
back, but it was delivered on the 23rd of September.
It was a like giving myself a birthday gift; though
I could hardly have known that it was going to be
delivered that day. :)
Yes, the picture, however was taken a week later,
to be precise yesterday: me watching the latest
South Park on my latop!
Bern is not a low-lying city, its close to 500m high; and most of the city looks down onto the Aare. And if you are walking by the Aare, like me, most of the time you'll be looking up. This gives a wonderful way to study the bridges.
People like bridges --- at least I do. They are a wonderful feat of engineering, and sometimes standing on them can give you quite a view below. There are quite a few bridges in Bern joining the parts of the city cut deep into two parts by the fast flowing Aare. While in the medieval ages it had served as a natural defense against invading enemies, now-a-days they have been stitched by these bridges. Take a look at some of them.
In the backdrop of the river and the small houses, the bright sunny sky, the cool weather, I was having a very pleasant time. It reminded me of the last birthday, spend in the Austrian Alps and in Innsbruck attending a conference. Incidentally, that was a Sunday, we had a wonderful conference lunch and followed by a nice walk down the mountain into the city of Innsbruck, and then an intense physics discussion with Uwe and Mike Creutz in a quaint bar.
Well, anyway coming back to the present, you really can't help noting certain things by the river. One was the certain stale smell of fish coming from the river -- this was a bit strange, I had never quite experienced that before in this part of the Aare. Certainly there were quite a few people fishing, though, which probably meant quite a fishes were around. At some point there was lots of gushing in the water, which made me look closely as if some big fish was sneaking up on me; but to my disappointment it turned out be some water outlet in the side of the river that was pumping out water. Another was this tower. Apart from the graphiti, this was a piece right from the Middle Ages.
The strong current of the river is often harnessed for power, I suppose -- you get to see these small embankments across the river, like this one.
Very soon the path turned a bit rocky, going over to the northern part of the city where the river twists and turns a lot. To my surprise, the road led to quite a dense wooded region -- this was already beyond Felsenau and going towards Tiefenau. It is indeed surprising that I have been here in Bern for almost two years now, and I hadn't come
along this path even once. Well, so much for that! Here is a view from in between the dense trees, looking into the river -- which you can make out by the strong reflection.Initially, I had decided that I will walk all the way to Bremgarten, where the river turns and flows to the west, and then come to a place from where I can cross the Bremgarten forest into Bumpliz Nord and then finally to my house in Bumpliz Sud. But shortly beyond this point (as shown in the picture to the right), I decided that it was a bit too much.
Anyway, if you travel a bit onward, you quickly come to Worblaufen which is the kind of the north-eastern border of Bern. This is where Albert used to live. To the left is a picture taken the Friday before last, when I was visiting their place. This is one of the high bridges connecting the parts of the city to the neighborhoods dissected by the river. This is an inverted perspective from the rest of the pictures before.
Whatever happens, this is one of the birthdays I will never ever forget now! This year has been very nice to me, life has been nice to me in some ways, for which I am grateful; and not nice in certain very cruel ways, but I cannot complain about that. Certain things are too heavy to be changed, they are better accepted as they are. Well, Happy Birthday to myself!
Note added a week later: The reason for editing
ever happened. The very next day after I finished
writing the blog was going to be my birthday. I had
ordered this, what you see to the right, several weeks
back, but it was delivered on the 23rd of September.
It was a like giving myself a birthday gift; though
I could hardly have known that it was going to be
delivered that day. :)
Yes, the picture, however was taken a week later,
to be precise yesterday: me watching the latest
South Park on my latop!
