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Zürich, Switzerland
But if you're worried about the weather then you picked the wrong place to stay
Switzerland isn't all that big, it's supposedly about twice the size of my home state of New Jersey but (obviously) a lot more mountainous. And unlike New Jersey, it has a fantastic and efficient rail system, one that makes it easy and painless to hop from city to city and lake to lake and (to a point) mountain to mountain.
This picture is from Zürich, a city (just like Geneva, Lausanne and Lucerne) on a lake that is framed by distant snow covered peaks. Specifically this is a view from inside the city, from the Lindenhof, a public square on the high ground once favored by the Roman Empire and now favored by bankers on their lunch breaks. The clock tower is from St Peterskirche, its monstrously large face still visible from blocks and blocks away.
The weather that followed me this trip was not the best. With only a few notable exceptions it rained every day, sometimes for only a little while or sometimes from dawn to dusk. My time in Bern was solely spent under an umbrella or hiding in a covered arcade, anything to get away from the cold heavy rain. Even here, in the presence of the crazy fun and crazy named Zeitglockenturm (or clock tower in boring, boring English), people have their heads down and their umbrellas up as they clearly miss out on all of the fun.
Grrr! The city of Bern is all about the bears and their commitment goes further than just t-shirts, plush toys and the official city coat of arms. Across the Aare from the old city, on an incredibly steep hillside, several bears roam free, spending their time staring at the city and wondering why they're there. And while the rain may have been awful for me, the bears thought it was pretty damn awesome. Grrr indeed.
Renzo Piano may have designed similar looking museums in Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston and Basel, but his Zentrum Paul Klee is shockingly, wonderfully different. Far outside of the historic city, the single artist museum is built into a hill and built as this incredible structure with individual waves that emerge from the earth. Inside the building the lobby and in between spaces are impressive but the galleries are a but of a non event- they are totally submerged under the hillside and are big boxy spaces, nothing more. Plus all of the art is by Paul Klee, never my favorite artist of the period to begin with. Give me Kandinsky any day.
If you were to draw a triangle between Basel, Zürich and Lucerne (or possibly Luzern), Luzern (or possibly Lucerne) would be at the bottom point, an easy hour (or less) rail trip from either city. What separates Lucerne isn't that it's a city (just like Geneva, Lausanne and Zürich) on a lake that is framed by distant snow covered peaks, but rather its river. The Reuss River cuts through the city and its old town and is spanned by shockingly beautiful pedestrian bridges adorned with flowers. This bridge is the Chapel Bridge (or Kapellbrücke if you're all about the German), and it dates back to 1333 or 1993, depending on where you're standing. After minding its own business uninterrupted for 630 years through wars and famine and plagues, a good chunk of the bridge burned down when it fell victim to an idiot with a boat on fire. The destroyed sections were rebuilt and the bridge once again lovingly spans the Reuss, same as it ever was, same as it ever was.
