Last day and night in Geneva

A wise old hobbit once said something like "It can be a dangerous thing, opening your front door. You take one step and then another and before you know it you don't know where you will end up!" - though my quoting is not perfect as I haven't reread that particular book from the best part of a decade.

That said however, one thing is for certain, if you don't step out from your house { or in my case my hostel } then you can be very sure of what will happen ... absolutely nothing. Unless a super freak accident occurs like the place catching fire one day is very much like any other and the chances of anything even half exciting happening are about as close to zero as makes no difference.

Now, possibly stolen from LaTourEx, I chose today to try out my next proper experimental, to wit the 'Mystery Journey Tour'. Part of the package, and the attraction to staying in a Geneva hostel is that they will furnish you with a free all day all zones bus, rail and tram ticket that will enable you to hop on and off any and every kind of public your heart desires and stay on it for as long as you remain in the city limits. Considering that each ticket would cost you about CF $19 per day, this is a very powerful incentive and I was determined to make the most of it.

However the thing still remained that the weather was grey and cloudy and I had no real idea of where I wanted to visit next in the city, so I thought that this was the best time to try the experimental travel method of the Mystery Tour. Armed with a map that I would only use in dire emergencies { and to finally get back again if it gets too late } I walked to the end of the road and then hopped on the first tram that came my way and off I went.

It was a good start, taking me away from the city centre and everything I had seen before, right up until it started heading due north and I remembered that if you go that way too far you actually cross over into France. Sure enough, after about only two pauses I had to hop off as I had not brought my passport with me and I didn't want to risk it once the only destination left on the screen and the tram stop posts were France!

So I got off, took a few photos, walked for a bit then crossed over the road and then waited for the first one back southward again. This time it was better as it took me right into the centre of town, and as it was seeming to stop and I had already been there a few times walking, I wasted no time before hopping on another. Over the roads and bridges we went till we got to somewhere near a large motorway and also something green on the map and not wanting to exit the city limits I jumped off and went exploring.

As it turned out, the green bits on the map was a sort of mini public zoo, mainly for birds and I got to take a few great photos of some swans, peacocks, some pigs and even a deer. I even managed to find a quaint old fashioned cafe with customers and everything. However I wasn't quite able to find the owner / barkeep and so after returning the can of Ice Tea back into the fridge { although I could very easily have just walked away with it and half the store as the guard dog was more interested in playing ball than in guarding anything } and left.

It also occurred to me that the Swiss must be very trusting, as I had been hoping on and off trams for a few days now and so far not a single inspector was on any of them, and I feel confident that I could probably have got away without having a ticket, though why I would want to run the risk of getting into trouble over such a silly amount of pocket change is why I never would!

Anyways, after I got back to civilisation I once again climbed onboard and found myself going north once more, only with a slightly different spin on things and ended up at the Botanical Gardens, which mum would have just loved. They had every kind of rockery and flowers from all over the world and what made it extra special was that they were kind enough to leave the labels in the ground, so you could identify what was what and check it all out later.

There were so many different and beautiful flowers to chose from that I could have no one favourite, though seeing a bonsai tree fully grown and not the miniature size versions { it is only the constant clipping and attention that keeps them small } was pretty funky if you ask me.

Right outside the Botanical Gardens was the headquarters of the United Nations. At last, I thought, I have got a chance to put my complains right to the source and so up I strolled and tried talking to the guard on the gate. Sadly however his English was not perfect and he confused my polite rant with the fact that I had missed the last guided tour of the day and suggested that I come back in the morning. Oh well, I guess it will have to be a well written letter that carried the day on that issue.

Mind you, the population of Switzerland is only 7 million and of that over 1.5 million are immigrants which is a huge percentage if you think about it, so it's no wonder they don't really care if the UK also has over 1 million as we have an overall population of over 60 million.

My time spend in Zurich, Bern and Geneva has made me realise fully that not all of Switzerland is cold, mountainous or snow topped. I guess if I had booked a trip right through the heart of the country I might have seen a snowy mountain cabin, which is my imaginary perfect place to have a honeymoon, but then again on my own it would have been a very isolated and boring place to stay so all in all I am happy with my lot.

After the UN I hopped on yet another and ended up going almost off the map again, this time with nothing really to show for it, so I looked at the map and headed back to town, where I took a final stroll back to the Hostel and for a bite to eat.

Geneva in the Sun

Having decided that I had not done enough classic touristy things and that if I waited for the right weather to do so I might lose the chance, I went forth again to hit the lake side and I am so glad that I did.

Not many people that have studied European history would believe that the Swiss have had their fair share of warfare, but back when Switzerland was divided into separate Cantons, or mini kingdoms, they were always warring with each other and have as bloody a past as any other country you could mention. This knowledge explains why there were so many castle and mini ports all along the cast of Lake Geneva and formed much of the Swiss Boat's tour that takes you on the lake, which was full of interesting bits of history and culture as well as offering up the best panoramic views of the keyside imaginable.

For CF $14 you get an hour and a bit tour of the inner circuit of the lake, or for an additional CF $9 you can get a full two hour which takes you on an even bigger loop that actually managed to enter French territory whilst on the lake and then brings you back again.

Switzerland officially has 4 native languages, and depending on which part of the country you are in you will notice that one will be more predominant over the other three, but then again English is spoken widely throughout, as is a little bit of Spanish. The main languages are French, German, Italian and Romanish, so if you ever want to a have a really multi lingual child then raise them in Geneva or Zurich and they will be able to speak more languages than you can, and then you just need to be married to a Chinese woman and have a Russian nanny, or vice versa and then your ..child will be bale to speak just about ever major language on the planet and have no problems travelling anywhere on the planet!

I mention this as on the boat cruise the entire dialogue was on a timed recording that spoke in French and then repeated everything in English and then the other languages with Spanish coming last just behind either Romanish or Portuguese { I've no idea what Romanish sounds like but the last two were both similar to Spanish that I am betting it was one of the other }.

With the waves gently lapping at the side of the boat it was nice to see a bit of froth and with the canopy enclosed with see through plastic windows the inside was very much like a conservatory and I would have stayed on the boat just for that reason even if I had been on the tour before. For some reason however towards the end of the tour the back flaps were pulled back which let all the wind in and I went form sunbathing to wrapped up with my jumper and coat on in a matter of seconds.

Apparently you can see the snow topped mountains in the distance on a clear day, but I guess that it helps to also be in the summer as try as I might I could only vaguely see a shape that could just as easily been a fluffy cloud as it was the top of a mountain.

Out of the lake there were only a few private boats jetting cruising up and down, but the peeps that really grabbed my attention were the kite surfers, who had what looked like mini curved parachutes and were surfing under the power of where the kits took them. Rather them than in me in this weather, as it was chilly even not being splashed by the lakes water and so in their black wetsuits I bet they must be freezing. Having said that, it did look like a lot of fun and especially when a really big gust took the kite as you could actually see them raise up into the sky before gravity pulled them back down again onto the lake.

I hadn't bothered to take my camera out with me onto the cruise, as the day didn't seem that clear and I already have loads of both sides of the lakeside already. I would suggest to anyone else to get a midday cruise and not a evening cruise, unless they were doing it purely as a romantic gesture, as by 6pm when it was on its way back the sun was so low that half the lake was covered in shadows and the other side was blinding as the sun was not only glaring at you, but so was its reflection from the lakes water which being choppy was worse than a mirror as you could not escape it no matter what angle you chose to sit at or view from.

The only other thing that I notice about Switzerland is that I have often smelled a burning smell which I could neither fully identify nor trace the source of, yet at certain times of the day it has been there, bourn on the wind.

Geneva

Geneva is everything that you think of when you think of the Swiss, and being totally frank if I didn't know any better I'd swear that it was either Zurich or Geneva that was the capital of the country and not Bern.

The UNISEF ( or whoever it is ) that decided to make Bern a place of global and national interest did a great job of keeping the old town quaint and attractive to look at, but when it comes down to it when your thinking of coming to a big city then Geneva is the place to visit.

Situated right on the banks of Lake Geneva you get all the usual stuff associated with big inner cities, graffiti, separate areas for the Asian and Africans communities, a large immigrant population, tourism, a red light district and billions of cinemas and restaurants wherever you go.

One point that I would like to make is that when I say that they have got loads of cinemas, the best thing is that they are all sort of working together, in that whichever cinema you arrive at has a tiny little fold up brochure of all the films on offer along with a map of all the cinemas in the region free for anyone to take. This means that you don't need to be einstein or have a tour guide show you where they are or at what time the film you want to watch is being shown, they lay it all out in front of you and let you chose, and it makes a nice change to know that although they are slightly in competition with each other that the movie goer really does come first.

In fact, on a Monday the only thing you can't get is a haircut. Having already been down to the main city centre yesterday I was fairly sure that I had not passed many salons and so today I took a trip around my neck of the woods so to speak, up and down and along all the side streets of just ten minutes walk North East of the main train station.

It is a sad state of affairs when I passed numerous brothels, night clubs and street hookers already open and touting for business at 10:30am and yet I must have passed over a dozen salons and they were all had the same sign up on the glass door 'Lundi - Ferme', and just in case anyone thought that I was joking I got so frustrated that I ended up taking a photo of the very next one I came up to.



I'm not sure what kind of political or social statement they are trying to make, but allowing you to be propositioned in broad daylight on a weekday after you have only just had breakfast and yet being unable to get a haircut is one of the weirdest occurrences I have experienced so far on my trip.

Eventually I managed to find a newly opened salon run by a pair of French speaking Seychelles guys, that were lucky for passing business. I asked for a shorter trim and the guy took over an hour with just about every kind of electric device and size of razor guard he had in the salon, and yet he didn't even tough the front or the top and so by the end I was just so glad for anything and to get out that I paid and left. Or at least I would have, but I had only a CF $200 and they had no change so I waited while the guy found a place to change it for me, which took him about ten minutes.

My best haircut clearly was in Penang, Malaysia and I will be doing my best to go back there as I pass. Here in Geneva, the Seychelles guy didn't rank highly and I think he should get himself some change and start to use scissors more and clippers less.

Late September is a bad time to come to Switzerland as the snow hasn't quite started to fall yet, but its a cold as if it had and the sun is only out for a few minutes a day. Having watched two movies this week already, I don't want to do another and facing the cold and blustery winds blowing right off the lake are a prospect that I don't find attractive. The worst part of the being next to a lake is that you get all the winds but no beach to lie on during warm sunny days.

If I had enough money I could live happily in Switzerland, but it is only still up there with the main heavyweights of Colombia, Spain, New Zealand and Malaysia, but I've yet to see so many countries yet that there is plenty of time to change my mind, or not!

Arrival in Geneva

Well, even with the planning it finally happened, 10 cities in and I totally lose track of what day it is and say goodbye to all my roommates only for the manager to come up just after 10am and ask me why am I still there as I should have cleared out by now.

Yes, it took a little over three weeks to happen but I finally completely lost track of how many days I had been or when my next train was due and it was only fortunate that the hostel manager came round and actually knocked on the door or else I very probably would have dossed through half the day and then realised far too late when I started packing up that I had already missed my connection.

Doubly luckily, or possibly well planned in advance to give myself a fighting chance should such a loss of memory occur, the train that I had booked did not leave until a few minutes after midday, so even with having to make a sudden and swift departure from the hostel there was still enough time for me to make the train as the station was only a few minutes walk.

I have a good feeling that my sense of direction must be improving as for the last day and a half I neither looked at my compass or the mini travel map to navigate the old city centre, but then again it is very small and almost impossible to go too far off because of the curve of the river bends and almost encompasses the city.

The station was half empty at that time of day, being a Sunday, and so I whipped out my laptop and quickly tried to dig out the directions of how to find the hostel from the train station once I reached Geneva, and was only a little surprised that the wifi in the station charged a few Franks per hour.

On the train there was no plug socket, despite it being modern double decker train, and by halfway through I was forced to resort to getting out my stero headphones and playing music from my mobile phone, as the group of Swiss girls all giggling and gaggling in French was so loud and high pitched that it went right through me, and eventhen only with the volume turned up to max was I able to drown them out completely.

I further impressed myself by managing to find the hostel not only first time and without constant looking at the map, but also ahead of a couple of other travellers who ended up arriving at the same hostel after they steamed off ahead from the train station and then taking a short cut down a side street, only it wasn't and ended up costing them more time to correct their mistake.

Sadly I was unable to check in to the hostel until after 3pm, as they were still cleaning the rooms, but the good thing was that they issued me a travel card for the local public transport and so I hose to nip into the centre of the old town and grab a bite to eat. I took a nice stroll down along Lake Geneva and it was only a pity that the weather was not sunnier or warmer as it would have been nice to go out on the lake, but perhaps it is already too late in the season for water sports.

In the town I chose to eat in an Italian and I wil name it to shame it, "Le Flores" or the flies as I dubbed it after having the worst meal I have ever experienced in my life. The place was totally infested with big round fat fruit flies and I couldnt concentrate or even stop to eat as they were everywhere. I managed to kill a handful and eat about half before even my best efforts were not enough to prevent them from landing in my food and once I had seen that it was time to go.

I would not be liying or exagerating in the slightest to say that there must have been at least twenty of the pesky things just around my one single table, and I am only further amased that noone else said anything ... perhaps they are used to eating flies in Geneva ?!? Even now, as I type this, I am shuddering at the thought of so many little horrors that I could neither blow all away or swat them.

After the worst meal experience ever, I did a little more tourist photo snapping and then grabbed a tram to the nearest thirteen screen cinema where they were showing a few films in English as well as in French and German.

I found my way there first time, I enjoyed the movies { apart from almost dying at the start of the second one ... read previous entry } and even managed to catch a tram and find my way back to the hostel with taking ashort cut rather than the long down and then up route that the main roads would have taken me. I am really feeling good about my sense of diretion and my map compass these days, I would really be lost without it.

Back in the hostel I checked in to find that so far the room has two other guys sharing it with me, one guy is an American that is a swimming teacher and gets free european travel as a perk of the job and the other is a Swiss guy that is on a walking Pilgrimage from Zurich to the coast of North Western Spain. He started his trip on the same day as me, and is spending three of four days in each city just like me, so we were chatting for quite a bit and he was suggesting that I ditch some of my clothes / send them home and instead just buy some ultra lightweight and odour eating clothes to free up some space and lightem the load.

Its a nice idea, but they don't look so hot, and I hope to be spending lots of days with friends along the way and I don't think that they will be very impressed if I tell them that I have magic clothes that means I dont need to wash themselves or myself despite doing all this travelling!

However I wish him all the best luck and good fortune on his journey and I hope that we can keep in touch as I am really keen to know how he gets on and what he feels at the end.

Already almost Dickon R.I.P.

I am a realist. I long ago formed the belief that life has something quite special planned for me, I really do, and everything I do between now and then is just for fun.

Call it fate, destiny or just bad timing but tonight I almost died and it was what has to be one of the most stupidest circumstances ever.

There were no guns, no drugs, no violence, no high buildings, no deep water, no obvious threat from any source and it was only indoors and at about 7pm so it wasn't even late outside. This will be a little out of sequence as I haven't shown you any photos or explained the rest of the day, but I want to get this down and out of the way as soon as possible.

I decided that I wanted to go and watch a movie once I had arrived in Geneva, which is something I almost always do, and also I almost always like to buy some little Haribo sweets and a coke. Sadly the coke on offer was virgin diet coke which tasted foul and watered down, but there you go.

Being only 4pm the only thing on that I wanted to watch till much later was Kung Fu Panda, a martial arts animated film, but here in Geneva they showed it dubbed into French without any subtitles.

After the film ended it was still early and so I decided to take in another movie, this time an action movie, the new Nichlas Cage flick 'Bangkok Dangerous', and it was still in its original English, only subtitled into French and German - which sort of ruined it a bit as there was so many subtitles at the bottom that you lose half the movie.

Anyway, it was shown in the same screen as the film before it, which happened to be the Kung Fu Panda that I had just watched. Anyway, with my luck rubbing off the projectionist got all mucked up and started to play the wrong film, being KFP yet again, much to the confusion to the audience. After I spotted a few getting up, I thought maybe I had got the wrong screen or perhaps they had switched it so I got up to leave and just about reached the exit when a local informed us all that the projectionist got it wrong and is about to correct his mistake, but in that time someone had stole my seat so I sat the net row down, so as to sit right in the middle of the cinema and I had the whole row to myself.

Thinking about how silly it was I started to laugh just as I had stuck a small, seemingly innocent jelly bear in my mouth .... and then I coughed ... and then I choked .... and then I almost past out and died.

So it was that with lots of comings and goings as my first and only noise was a cough, as it was in the dark, as I had chose a row of seats all to myself and as all the other cinema goers all speak a different language, once the room began to spin and all I could do was cough and cough I was very much afraid that I was about to die right then and there the victim of half a lodged gummy bear in a Swiss cinema, watching a Chinese style martial arts film dubbed into French!

Thankfully I managed to cough it up with almost my last effort as I was seriously losing it and about to fall to my knees, but it once again convinced me to live my life to the fullest as no matter how safe or dangerous I chose to live my life when my number is finally up it will be up and there is nothing I or anyone else will be able to do about it.

It also continued a long list of near misses where I could have died a ridiculously stupid death, making me believe even more than when I do I am glad that I will already be dead or else I would probably die of embarrassment as to how it finally happens.

By the by, I liked both films a lot, although I could see the ending of the second film a way off and it was a shame that they played it so dark and dirty as I would have liked to have seen more of Bangkok.

Have a nice life, be good to your friends and family but remember that no matter how safe you live your life accidents will always happen and as you can never protect against everything so you mustn't let that prevent you from living your life to the fullest.

All change in Bern

As it is so many times with staying in Hostels, a new day beings a whole new bunch of faces as the old ones move out.

The Australian girls have left for northern Italy, the Irish couple are leaving a day ahead of me to Geneva and then on to Barcelona before flying home and although they were not actually staying in my dorm the friendly Canadians from British Colombia are heading off back home too.

The French speaking lass with her father, or maybe uncle, are doing a bit of a switcheroo as they were sleeping in separate rooms for the past two days but today he moved in to our dorm so that they could be together.

The funny this is that Sunday is such a mellow and mellow day in Switzerland, more so than in most countries, and so why so many people have chose today to try and make it out of the city and go places is unusual, but then perhaps it makes sense as it is so dead that there is nothing left to do except the very basics, eat, sleep, sex, etc. Even the locals joke that the city is so very laid back that if it was any more so it would be horizontal.

Before they left I got chatting to the young Dublin couple who have been travelling since January just around Europe, and who managed to stay in Hungary for about three months. The saved up a bit but much of the time they ended up finding work actually in the hostels that they were staying in, as well as offering to do the obvious bar work and if they wanted to they were even offered to teach English abroad, despite having no proper English qualifications in teaching.

It is true that every traveler that I have met, thus far, has got a few stories to tell, enjoys talking to people, seem very relaxed and are easy going people, and again it makes me think about what I want to do after I get back to the UK should the writing not take off.

I know that I do not want to go back to my old job of being an accountant, although I feel that that would be very easy to do, and I have long ago considered building / owning or running a hostel somewhere in a warm country. As I am going to interview the girl who works for this hostel tonight, I think I will ask her for the pro's and con's of doing so and see how that idea shapes up.

Mr Sociable

It won't come as a surprise to many people to find that me staying in hostels is making me talk to people, and that once I get them talking we find that we can talk about just about anything.

Bern is a quiet little sleepy and laid back capital city where nothing much happens during the weekend, which a lot of the guests here in the hostel have found out, like the Irish couple who were sharing the single bunk and the pair of Aussie girls who are off to Italy tomorrow { fancy that, more Australians, lol }. We are all feeling as cooped up as each other and I found out that we even share the same taste in movies as my 8pm movie choice was the same as their choice last night, so of course we switched to another film that none of us have watched.

After the film, at about 11pm, I was just surfing away on my laptop when a Canadian asked me where there was any place to buy some large batteries, and cutting a long story short I ended up lending her my power adapter so that she could use her $7000 anti- smoking device on her son in law. She was awfully grateful and even offered to leave some form of ID with me, but over such a small matter I really couldn't really ask or accept anything.

After that I was about to go back to my typing when one of the girls who runs the hostel asked me about my typing and soon after we were chatting like old friends and she easily agreed to complete my mini questionnaire tomorrow after she finished her shift as she was just about to go clubbing with her sister right now.

I knew that travelling would be good for me meeting people but this could also be a great chance to get some background info on JJ as the girl here is a real Swiss who also speaks perfect English, has visited Chur and even helped me learn to pronounce it more correctly.

I really think that this trip is the right thing for me to be doing now, and meeting the people is just as important and valuable as taking photos of the places.

Bern is closed for the weekend it would appear

Today started off well, my earplugs had stayed in all night and so I got a nice long nights sleep and thought about catching up on my emails, checking that my friends in Brazil and Peru were still up for meeting me in less than a month and then taking a nice leisurely stroll around the town.

Although the sun was shining there was not that much heat, but clear blue skies are great for photo shoots and so I didn't feel that this was going to be any real pain. The first signs of today going a bit Pete Tong was when I sat outside a nice church at the end of the old town near midday.

At precisely midday the chimes started and at first it was nice to hear the bell ring out the time in hourly bongs, only they didn't stop at 12. They didn't stop at 20, I seriously started counting at about 6 or 7 but gave up after 50 and still they went on.

I went in short order from "mmm thats nice" to "hmmm, thats got to be more than 12, wasn't it", "ahhhh, are they going to go on all day" ,"ok you can stop now" , "no seriously stop" , "I said stop" , "enough already" , "oh for crying out loud, ENOUGH" , "ok, you asked for it, I'm gonna walk away and you can just bong yourself into oblivion without me".

It is a shame really, as it was a lovely clear blue sky, I had just found a bench in the sun that was out of the wind and I could happily have sat there all morning but not with that incessant monotone ringing loud and near going through my skull.

But it as still a nice day, I had a bit of dosh in my pocket and I was alone in a foreign city, which always makes me feel a bit more confident and happier than normal. Gently strolling along I thought that the centre of the old town was a bit pricey and empty of people but that was nothing compared with what it was like just five minutes walk westward. The cars became as infrequent as passing flies, the people thinned out and the shops all had fewer and fewer people in them.

Then all of a sudden it was like I was back in St Marys Island as it was a ghost town and everything was closed. It is hard to come to terms with the fact that I am was in a European countries capital city and it was a warm Autumn Saturday afternoon as shops after shop was closed and one of the main reasons was that there was just not any customers walking past to make it worth their while staying open.

In a ten minute walk I passed five hair salons, three of which were closed, one did not cut mens hair on a Saturday { except OAP's by the look of the other people in the shop } and the other was even more bizarre as it was being run by a lone Italian who was born and raised in Bolton { which explains his accent } but now living and working in Bern and although the place was empty except for him and his one customer he said that he was fully booked out all day, but that otherwise he would have loved to cut my hair for me!

The whole place seems to have many bear motif's all over the place, and after awhile I decided to find out and luckily I passed a postcard seller who had a card that explained its origins and background which was cool.

I did have ideas of doing a few other bits today, but once I saw how the whole place except the very centre, seems to be closed down over the weekend, I gave up and came back and rested up a bit in the hostel.

Failure to advertise what needs it most

I just want to say a little grumble about hostels that I had not previously noticed, or maybe only in most of the ones that I have stayed in recently.

Personally I have no problems finding restaurants or night clubs in cities, I really don't need a hostel to have over two dozen leaflets and brochures suggesting where I can throw me money at food.

As I have already booked my hostels for the RTW trip, and every time I have entered a hostel on the spur of the moment I have found it to be fully booked up already, so why do I need the hostel I am staying in to have fliers and leaflets about similar hostels in neighbouring cities and countries?

However there seems very little in the way of adverts for local events, organised tours or tour agencies and places of interest that you should go visit with accurate opening times and entrance costs, even better would be a discount voucher or two to ease my way in!

I had sort of expected to turn up at a hostel, find loads of stuff about taxi's, local public transport timetables and local places of interest all laid out on a platter for me, with possibly have some info on other places to stay or where to eat hidden at the back of the reception office, but it would appear that much the opposite is the case.

They all know about the museums and such but far and away the biggest thing they are pushing is restaurants and clubs, probably where they get a tiny kickback if anyone is talkative enough to say who recommended their bistro in the first place.

Holy Exploding Luggage Batman

I'm sorry, but I just couldn't help it as the timing was just so spot on, really it was .... just read on and it will all become clear.

As is one of my favourite pass times, especially in foreign cities, I went to the late night showing of the "Batman : The Dark Knight" which is just great and although Gary Oldman does a wonderful job, as does Christian Bale I still say that they are both upstaged by the superb Heath Ledger.

There are about 20 mini cinemas in the near vicinity of central Bern, and each of them seems to have one or possibly two screens and each can seat around 300, that are widely spaced apart that you have no problems knocking into knees to find your seat and the person in front would have to have the largest hat in the universe, or be about 8 foot tall, for it to intrude in your viewing pleasure.

However the Swiss themselves like to ruin the movies themselves as I could not get over the amount of background talking and noise all the way through the film, the loudest I have ever noticed from a mature audience { well mature in age if not manners }.

What was almost as bad is that they threw in a 15 minute intermission, during a high tempo fight scene no less, which totally killed the atmosphere and also as I was so tired and bored by the time it restarted I momentarily lost track of what was going on in the film.

After the film, and emboldened by my recent experience of visitng Sexual Spartacus in Vienna { and of a desire to find something truly exciting to do and write about } I decided to go take in a live Cabaret show with dancing girls. Live Cabaret Show on a Friday night in Bern ... 'Whata Mistaka Ta Makea!'.

No, I didn't get mugged, or ripped off, or ended up drunk in an alley ... or even get offered a private dance, no, it was one of the most anti-climatic moments in my entire life.

It was after 11pm, I geed myself all up to go in {slightly wondering why there was no bouncer or scantily clad women at the door beckoning in punters from off the street but I took this to be a good sign as that always puts me off anyway} opened the glass door underneath the pink neon sign and slowly descended down a spiral staircase.

Descended and descended only to get to the bottom of a staircase that opened out into an empty club, and when I mean empty I don't just mean that there was no boozed up marks or that there was only a few dancing girls touting their wears I mean it was as empty as the frikkin Marie Celest.

Pink semi secluded booths with leather sofa's and dancing pole with mirrors be damned, I didn't see anyone no matter which way I looked, and so I just gave it up as a lost cause and ascended back up the winding stairs again and feeling more than a little deflated, walked the 5 minutes back to my hostel.

Back at the hostel there seemed to be a nightclub underneath the place, so much so that in the main reception they actually have a wicker basket full of ear plugs to take with you as you go on up to your room to sleep.

However with my excitement gauge bruised and never being one for loud base pumping night clubs at the best of times, alone and tired i just didn't feel up to it and so I headed on up to my room to grab some kip.

Adding to last nights frustration, during the train ride over from Zurich to Bern it would appear that my suntan lotion bottle decided to explode inside my wash bag and thus when I woke this morning to freshen up I had instead to clean up and leave out to dry all my smellies.

Slightly more amusing though, I also noticed that on the lower bunk next to mine was a nice young couple all snuggled up to each other, and considering the size of the single bunks that was impressive by itself and also went a long way to why they were both partially exposed from underneath the cover.

All in all I do not feel that Bern is the liveliest place to be out and about 'avin it large' after dark, although it still had its fair share of midnight revellers, but for me that only adds to its charm, as I have also not felt this safe as I did back in my little historic town of Alcala de Henares in Spain, and certainly I felt safer than either in London or my home town of Gillingham.

Bern

After the nice long chat that I had with my Tai Chi studying Irish lad room buddy last night, I really was eager to ask him to participate in one of my travel interviews, sadly however he never rose in time and leave it as late as I might, I had to check out at 10am and even by then he was still in the land on nod.

Had I known that he would be such a sluggerbed I would have roused myself up much earlier and headed off to the train city centre in order to do just a little sight seeing, but alas it was not to be.

I did, however manage to get a tiny feel for the place and also spot a signpost for Chur, the birthplace of my fictional detective gentleman hero { copyrighted before any even thinks about it }, which was very cool and a bit like Elvis fans actually reaching Graceland.

Anyway, by the time I got to Zurich main train station I was completely unready for the sheer size of the place.

It seemed to stretch out in all directions, including up and down, had over 50 platforms and as well as the usual crappy shops and restaurants it even had its own gymnasium, sex shop and cinema, THAT'S how big it is.

It's like a mini city in the heart of Zurich, a whole world run to a strict timetable and all under the cover of one all encompassing roof.

There were so many intercity trains that I again regretted not turning up earlier, as I had the choice of at least four in the space of twenty minutes, and were it not for the rucksack on my back I would have for sure enjoyed taking a stroll and coming back later to catch a later train.

Arriving in Bern was like a dream come true, and the first really super amazing point for me on a tour that is crammed with impressive sights, people and places.

The city was so idyllic, so oldie worldie and modern at the same time. The sun was out casting a wonderful warm glow down onto the streets and the greenish yellow brickwork almost gleamed and it was like it was a hundreds years ago.

In the distance the lush dark green forested hills could be seen and down below the main city centre was a ravine and another part of the city which looked tiny by comparison and set beside a flowing river with an ornate bridge spanning across its rooftop all set off wonderfully by the crisp blue sky with barely a single white fluffy cloud was almost enough to bring a tear to my eye and certainly it could inspire a thousand poets to greater heights than they ever managed before.

It was also my kind of place, as it had all the usual conveniences, which included over 20 mini cinemas all within 10 minutes walk of my hostel, numerous coffee shops, the main train station, trams, hills, rivers, bridges, McDonalds and Burger Kings, museums, theatres, banks and ATM machines, clubs and bars, all the comforts of home just in a better setting.

True that most of the folk here speak French as their first language and German as their second, but still they also all seem to speak enough English for me not once to have to reach for a phrase book and as I am used to London prices the cost here is only a little more than I would at first expect, and if I could get a job then this is certainly a city that could keep me entertained for many an age.

In fact, the only mildly frustrating thing that I have noticed about the place, which is in my Hotel / Hostel, is that they ask that you do not use the elevator to get to the second or third floors unless you are carrying luggage, and also that the wi-fi servers signal is not good enough to reach past the second floor even with my range expanding adapter.

Tomorrow the skies will again be dry and clear, although not actually that hot, and so I hope to be able to take plenty of photos to show, but for the time being, here are a few I took this afternoon.