This will be a rushed post, because I will be walking back into town with my mom for dinner soon.  We are in Lucern, now, but I have fallen behind with my posts, now that we are off the boat and are spending our evenings walking around these beautiful Swiss cities!

Yesterday, we were in beautiful Bern and got our first glimpse of the snow-covered Swiss Alps.  This was the view from our hotel; not a good shot, I know, but I have no time to do any editing, so I am just throwing some photos up here for now as a teaser!

When I get the chance (perhaps not even until I return home), I will go back and edit this post to include more (or better) shots and tell you a little more about our last two stops:  Bern and Lucerne.

For now, I will give you just a quick impression of our day and night in Bern.  It’s a very unique city with the city center filled with 4 miles of covered arcades with arches, rather than just open sidewalks.  They are full of one-of-a-kind shops and boutiques; all quite stylish and unique.

Since Bern dates back to 1191, it is VERY old and interesting!  the architecture is fantastic and the coblestone streets are filled with interesting fountains, right in the middle of the street.

Bern is a great walking city and we enjoyed our day and evening there very much, before retiring to our gorgeous hotel for the night.  The city is named after the bear and they are proud to have the bear as their symbol on their flag (and everything else).  We visited the Bear Pit; a huge enclosure open to the public 24/7.  It was located up on a hill overlooking the city and had three bears roaming the pit.  This was the view from the stair way leading down from the pit to the river:

The view from our hotel was fantastic!

Here are more scenes from our day…