Our first day of the New started started at the KunstMuseum as we made our way through the temporary galeries to explore the Fuseli Drama and Theatre exhibition, followed by the Museum collection, both of which couldn't be photographed. If the first was an utter surprise, once we had never been to an exhibition almost entirely dedicated to a cast of dramatic characters, many of which from Shakespeare's plays, the second was a huge collection of many of the most outstanding painters, spanning seven centuries of Art history.
"The judgement of Paris" by Lucas Cranach, the elder (1528); Youthful self portrait by Hans Baldung gen. Grien (1502).
Marie by Amadeo Modigliani (1918). Cattle dealer by Marc Chagall (1912).
Road to Asgardstand by Edvard Munch (1901). The Wind's bride by Oskar Kokoschka (1913).
Man, woman and child by Pablo Picasso (1906).
We soon got onto a train heading to Bern where we were to spend one day and a half before moving on. The hotel was slightly out of the city centre but close and cheap enough for us to go to and from, once the transport is free once you are lodged at a local hotel.
By the time we made it back to the city centre it was getting colder and gray but we still strolled along the pedestrian-like city centre street to both sides of the Zytglogge. Largely Medieval the centre has been recognised as a cultural heritage site. We tried to identify the allegorical statues on public fountains, most of which date from the 16th century, having precisely started with one of the most frightful ones - the Ogre of the Kindlifresserbrunnen.
The Zähringerbrunnen statue is a memorial to the founder of Bern, said to have shot a bear whilst searching for na ideal place to build the city on. Simsonbrunnen was the one to follow. A few "unidentifiable" representations were interspersed into the ones I had listed. The Schützenbrunnen and the Gerechtichkeitsbrunnen together with the statue of Anna Seiler, founder of Bern's hospital in 1354 came much later.
We came upon the 1406 -1416 Rahthaus, which I found to be particularly nice, architecturally speaking. I don't exactly know what got my attention, but I must say that I took several pictures of the sculptures that decorated its façade, which clearly embelished it.
We ventured into the small church just across from the Rathaus and spent some quiet time admiring its interior. There were some street ceremonies going on in the Minster square, so in order to avoid the amount of people and the busy surrounding areas we took the other direction having ended up near the Parliament area from where we got onto a tram and made our way back to the hotel.
