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Bern

The first thing I saw when I emerged out from the underground (station) was the glass canopy hovering above. After stepping away from the escalator, right in front is the bus stop. And all around are shopping malls inside seemingly grand facade buildings.

The transport system in Switzerland is amazing. Very well designed, very functional, very ergonomic. There are some buses with places to rest one's butt while standing during peak hours! Nearly everything is planned for. Even twin prams! Oh, and the pram designs ! There are all types of them - single, twin - side by side, or one behind the other, twin + storage, ways to carry baby on shoulders, on the back or the front, or both!

The buildings are clean edged boxes, and primarily green glass facades. The favourite colour of the Swiss seems to be black, grey or red. Thats what they wear and thats what they colour their buildings. There are hardly any billboards in the city. And on the roads, the cars are super disciplined. All vehicles start slowing down atleast 500mts from the zebra crossing to allow pedestrians to cross. And, no honking whatsoever!! Infact, this is the scene in all cities in Switzerland.

The student housing that we stayed in, is located on the outskirts of the city. This is as per the Corbusian/modernist plan of zoning places of staying away from places of working. And all the buildings look alike, i.e. like long grey cuboids with large green lawns between them.

Nearly everything is done by the book, and any discrepancy leads to massive trauma and confusion!

Lifts in these buildings don't have the inner door, so you can touch the walls and outer doors on your way up or down! There are deep basements in these buildings. Our building had 2 of them. And there were so many storage cells! Shreya and Sujata thought they appeared like human storage chambers during the wars. And in the deafeningly silent darkness of the basement they lurked ! There is a music room in the lower basement with a 500mm thick concrete strong door.... but if the door shuts, you cannot open it. There are 2 fabulous Pianos there. Saw it, but never used it.

The silence was deafening even above the ground. It took some time getting used to.

These buildings we stayed in are amongst the highest in the city, so, from the room one could see the right up to the Alps on a clear day! It was as if the windows were framing a picture postcard. One day, 2 hot air balloons ascended from a yonder hill.

We took the bus to the city centre. Over a period of time I felt that the bus moved at the same speed, turned in the same radius, stopped at the exact spot, every single time ! It was as if, there is no room for error.

The city of Bern has the river Aare (pronounced as Aarey) flowing through it. And along one part of it is a bear park. Sloth bears walking around in a fenced sloped part along the river's edge for people to come and look up (from the river) or down (from the bridge) at them. And there are screens that show the bears' activity when they enter the caves.

Theres a massive cuckoo clock in the old part of the city. And in the old/heritage buildings of Bern - malls, shops, bakeries, supermarkets, etc have taken over. But in the middle of the cobbled road between the heritage buildings is a narrow underground stream flows - covered in some places, and open in a few. This seemed to be the only area with any potential of surprise in the city!

Oh, and the basements of some of these heritage buildings had some very nice night clubs and pubs.

The city is glossy clean during the day, but at 3am saturday morning or 2am sunday morning, you'll be walking on cigarette butts littered around and squishing unfinished beer cans and water bottles. The administration is super efficient and disciplined.

We went to the Paul Klee Zentrum - designed by Renzo Piano and Westside shopping mall - designed by Daniel Libeskind. PKZ has steel clad concrete structure supposedly growing/ curving out of the landscape and fancy louvres and structural detailing. The exhibition spaces were quite banalised by false ceiling, etc.

The Westside mall - angled beams coming out of the wall and going into the ceiling, staircases going in weird angles, banal mall typo scale, textbook DL ceiling lights.. But at night, from the train looked quite awesome.