Gruyere and Bern

We had another successful road trip today. Stefan from Romania and Deborah, Rick and I from the US rented a car and went to Gruyere and Bern. We spent most of the morning at the chateau in Gruyere. It was first built in 1115 and 19 counts occupied it at different times until the 1554. It then became home to the bailiffs and then to the prefects sent by Freiborg. In 1849, the Bovy and Balland families bought it and restored it. It was then sold back to Frieborg in 1938 and made into a museum. It is also home to the Giger museum. HR Giger did the film designs for the Aliens movies, Poltergeist, Dune, Species, among others.

We then drove to Bern, where Einstein lived in his miracle year of 1905...the year he wrote the theory of special relativity. He lived in a very small apartment building without any running water or a kitchen. The people in his apartment shared a common kitchen with some other neighboring apartments. Einstein's son Hans Albert was born when he and Mileva lived here.

We walked a couple of blocks to the Einstein museum. It was actually several museums in one large building, but Einstein got top billing. There they had several of his documents and letters from his entire life.

Bern was a very interesting town with lots of old buildings, but it was overcast and somewhat drizzly all day, so pictures don't really do it justice. We had crossed over from the French part of Switzerland to the German part between the chateau and Bern, so we were lucky that Stefan is multi-lingual.

Back tonight just in time to get the last 4 steaks at the cafeteria. I'm off to bed because I'm getting up early for a trip by taxi, train, and boat to the medieval village of Yvoire, France. I will try to post pictures from today to

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