Bern, baby, Bern

Roll up, roll up for the Mystery Tour….

Before leaving Israel, I had purchased a pair of Swiss Rail Cards, which would enable us to travel for free on all Swiss public transport as well as receiving 50% discounts on other means of travel, specifically the cable cars at Cardada. We hadn't taken extreme advantage of the card yet, although it will see plenty of use in the Lucerne stage of our holiday. But having such a card enabled us to take the mystery tour – ride the first train which leaves Locarno and see what happens after that.

Just as we arrived at the station, a train was leaving for Bellinzona, the local nexus, so we jumped onto the train. In Bellinzona, we had a connection leaving almost immediately for Lucerne and Basel so we took that train. By the time we arrived at Lucerne, at around midday, it became apparent that we wouldn't be have enough time to travel to Basel, walk around for a few hours and catch a train back to Locarno at a reasonable hour (Basel is in the far north of Switzerland, Locarno in the far south). The train pulled into Olten station, north east of Lucerne just as a train on an adjacent platform arrived, headed for Bern. So we jumped ship (or train).

I had wanted to travel to Bern, but the route which I had intended to take – Locarno, Domodossola, Brig, Bern – whilst scenic would have taken several hours and the first train wouldn't leave until 10:40, so I had abandoned that idea. Obviously fate wanted me to come to Bern, for here I was. Bern railway station is a vast affair and it took some time for us to emerge from the platform to the outside streets. When we did, an unpleasant surprise awaited us: the rain was bucketing down. Dismayed, we made a tour of the small shopping centre in the station then decided to have lunch in a pleasant restaurant/diner on the third floor.

Whilst eating, I was reminded of John Le Carré's novel, "A perfect spy", in which the youthful Magnus Pym is 'discovered' whilst eating in the buffet of Bern railway station. Let us not forget that Le Carré (or to give him his real name, David Cornwell) was stationed in Bonn, presumably after he had been burned by Kim Philby's defection, and so many of his books have scenes set in Switzerland (even his latest book, "Our kind of traitor", has its third section set here, albeit in Wallen).

I was then struck by another coincidence: we were on a magical mystery tour and eating spaghetti. After I explained to my wife about the Beatles' MMT and the big mess which it caused, I remembered that there was a scene in which John Lennon played a waiter and fed the fat man buckets and buckets of spaghetti. We were eating spaghetti….

After eating, we bought a rain coat and a pair of Swiss snow/sunglasses from the camping shop conveniently situated next door to the restaurant. When the saleslady heard us speaking Hebrew, she asked "Israel?", and then proceeded to tell us that she had been a volunteer on a kibbutz thirty years ago. I told her about the volunteer convention which had been held the week before we left.

By the time we had completed these purchases, the rain had ceased and the sun had begun to shine. Pleased, we walked out of the station and into a park; there I noticed a funicular railway which of course we had to ride, and from there we made our way to the river. After a few compulsory photographs, we came back to the funicular, went up and arrived at the Swiss General Assembly building (which I am sure is called something like Bundestag).

More surprises awaited us on the other side: a set of fountains set in a plaza which turn on and off according to some predetermined plan. The unpredictability of the fountains provides a perfect playing ground for children, and they (along with a few adults) were running across the dormant fountains, trying not to get wet. Occasionally all the fountains would erupt for a few minutes,eliciting cheers from the crowd.

Across the road was the type of boulevard so beloved of the Europeans (and so lacking in Israel): a wide road of which a third was given over to cafes. At the head of the boulevard a few giant chess boards were painted onto the pavement, and it crossed my mind that this might be the setting for one of the scenes in Le Carré's novel, "Smiley's People" – towards the end, the Russian diplomat Boris is "borrowed" for a few hours whilst watching such a street chess match.

From there, it was a short walk back to the train station; we left shortly after on a train headed to Lucerne, then took a long train back to Bellinzona which arrived a few minutes late, thus causing us to miss our connection to Locarno. Fortunately, trains leave Bellinzone for Locarno every half hour, so we were back in the hotel by 10pm after a long and mainly enjoyable magical mystery tour.

Santana was playing in the Piazza Grande when we arrived and we could hear him very well, although I couldn't recognise much of what he played. At some stage there was a chorus of 'Soul Sacrifice', but that must have been as part of a medley. After going to bed, I awoke a little later to hear Sting sing 'Roxanne' with Santana – very strange. As I had written, Sting had played the previous night; we heard six songs and then everything went quiet. Did he terminate his concert early? Did he go acoustic? I wonder what happened, for we could hear Santana very clearly the following night. If I had an internet connection, I would look this up, but currently I'm on a train going north from Locarno to Lucerne (passing one pretty village after another) and there are no wifi networks to be found.

Addendum: Now in Lucerne, we have wifi in our hotel room so it's not a problem to look something up. It's strange how Google and Wikipedia have become so essential!