Europe - day 10

We were hoping to "go out with a bang" - but instead it was more like a fizzle, a balloon deflating... we spent most of the day staring out the window of the Glacier Express at rain and clouds.  We had to make advance reservations for the trip, so unless we wanted to blow off the money we spent, we had to go.  We still saw some pretty landscape, but it wasn't nearly the spectacular scenery that it should have been.  The best part was probably our lunch - yummy soup and bread.  We had the goulash soup a couple different times, and it was really good.  Our Glacier Express began in Zermatt and ended in Chur (about a 6 hour trip).

We headed back through Zurich - we wandered around the city, pushed our way through the crowds.  Too many people for us.  We bought some really expensive chocolate from the famous Sprungli shop.  The 4 pieces below were about $7 - they were good, but I wouldn't buy them again for that price.  The whole city was VERY expensive.  

When we got back to Bern, we headed over to the bear park (Baren Park), which someone told us we had to see.  We didn't know about it previously, so we hoped we could see it before we left.  It started pouring just after we got there, but I snapped a few pictures.  The bear is essentially Bern's mascot, and bears have been kept in the city since 1513.  The legend is that a bear was the first animal to be caught by the city's founder during a hunting expedition, so that's how the city got its name (in 1191).  "Baren" is the German plural of "bears".  In 1513, a living bear was carried home with spoils of war in a triumphal procession of winning the Battle of Novara.  They kept the bear in a pit in the city.  From that time, bears have been in the city for all but about 7 years (when the French kidnapped them and moved them to Paris in 1798).  At times there have been 12 or more bears in the Bern Bear Pit, but they are no longer kept in the legendary bear pit.  In 2009, they opened up a park for the bears.  Pretty cool tradition and fun to see bears in the middle of the city!