<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > "Great City</h1>"
The inspiration for the "Great City" came from a sentence seen in Turin, Italy, to the effect that" was: "What makes Turin a great city is not a prosperous economy or the status of a royal capital, but because the city has the second largest Egyptian museum in the world after Cairo, and its collection of Egyptian culture is even richer than that of the British Museum." Thank you to His Excellency the Governor for your foresight in making Turin one of the greatest cities in the world (at that time). ”
Great cities are star-studded and innumerable, either living in the past or continuing their splendor to this day. "Great Cities" was the first series I wrote about what I was thinking while traveling to a certain city. Many of the selected cities are not actually famous, but they all have irreplaceable places in human history.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > bear city in Tserlingen</h1>
Bern was born in legend.
In 1191, the Duke of Herzog von Zähringen established a new border point between the German-speaking region of Almanni and the French-speaking region of Burgundy, Bern. Bern remains the rough dividing line between the German-speaking and French-speaking parts of Switzerland to this day.
Legend has it that the Duke of Tseringen decided to leave the naming of the new town to God. He led the congregation into the nearby mountain forest, intending to give the first captured beast the name of the new city.
As a result, he caught a bear, and the new town was named "Bärn". Bärn means "bear" in Swiss German.
Speaking of the founding of Bern, it is necessary to mention the founders of the city, the Zerlingen family.
During the Middle Ages, the Zerlingen family was a hegemon in Switzerland and the Swabian region, and once established some of the more important cities in Europe, such as Bern and Freiburg.
After the collapse of the European hegemony, the Frankish Empire, the continent fell into a state of fragmentation, and the Swiss region was controlled by several large families. The Zerlingen family is one of them, and still retains a certain cultural influence in some cities. The name Zähringen is often used in local museums, and a part of Freiburg's urban area is directly named Zähringen.
There is a fountain in Bern called the Tseringen Fountain, which commemorates the founders of the city, the Tseringen family.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > bear in Bern</h1>
In 1513, the Bernese general Bartholomäus May returned home after a war. This time he brought back many loot, including a bear. He put the bear in a moat, and bern's first bear park was born.
Napoleon's French army, after occupying Bern in 1789, brought bears from the bear orchard to France. It was not until 1810 that the bear garden was inhabited by bears again.
Unfortunately, when I visited Bern, I encountered bad weather, sleet, and the big bears and the little bears hid in the hole and refused to come out.
(Source: Swiss Travel official website)
Under normal circumstances, the bear garden should be like this.
Next to the Bear Garden, there is a mountain road connecting the Rose Garden at the top of the hill. If in summer, the rose garden blossoms like the sea, purple and red, bathed in the sea of flowers overlooking the old town of Bern, is undoubtedly a romantic scene.
Scientist Einstein sat on a bench in the rose garden, paying homage to passers-by.
Einstein lived in Bern for seven years, during which time he developed the famous theory of relativity. The Einstein House is preserved in Bern, and the BernEse History Museum features an Einstein exhibition.
In the streets of Bern, there are always traces of "bears". In front of the gate of the Federal Palace in Bern, there is a statue of a bear, like a guard guarding the gate, looking at every pedestrian with vigilant eyes.
After Bern became the seat of the Swiss Federal Parliament and the Federal Government, the Swiss government began to design and build federal institutions in Bern. The Bundes palace was born, and is now the Bundestag building, with its iconic feature being a patina dome.
The Bundes palace can be visited by appointment, and it is difficult to get a place by appointment on the same day. I just didn't make a reservation in advance and missed the opportunity to visit. It is said that it is also possible to visit the Dome Hall.
The Old Town of Bern belongs to the narrow peninsula type of land, similar to the Chongqing Yuzhong Peninsula. Bern has two nice nature observation decks with panoramic views of the Aare Valley. The Rose Garden is one of them, and the other is the Bundesterrasse at the back of the Bundesterrasse.
It is recommended to walk from the Confederation Palace all the way to a nearby city park called Kleine Schanze, which is the best view. The Aare River is like a turquoise jade belt, tying the millennia-old winds of the old city to the narrow peninsula.
Urban weirdness
Another nickname in Bern is the "Ghost Town" (Geisterstadt).
An entrepreneur named Alfred Erismann wrote a book, Bern im Licht seiner Spuk- und Gespenstergeschichten, which collects many Bernese urban myths. Erismann is also a Tour Leader of the Bernese city, leading tourists through the streets in search of "ghost" legends.
Abandoned houses, dark corners, deserted alleys, creepy stories of word of mouth. The Town Hall of Bern once had a custodian of his stolen property, whose treasure had been taken away by the French. Endless resentment and remorse have turned him into a ghost, still searching for the lost treasure.
Junkerngasse 54 is a haunted house where supernatural events begin to occur after the death of a couple. Someone once investigated the haunted house and found no so-called ghost. The haunted house may have been just a warehouse before.
Legend has it that there is an underground passage between a monastery and a monastery somewhere in Bern, in which children who are deprived of their right to live are secretly "disposed of". Whenever at midnight, when the city is thick with mist, these "disposed" children climb up to the ground, walk aimlessly through the mist, and disappear at one o'clock in the morning on time. They may be dancing, they may be looking for a substitute for the dead.
Before the Bern Tower had installed the Chime Clock, it was a women's prison. According to urban legend, the souls of executioners often wander around the tower. However, after the installation of the clock, the prison tower is no longer a prison.
The Old Town of Bern has more than a dozen well-preserved fountains, fountain sculptures designed with religious legends and city celebrities. One of the most famous fountains is the Child Eater Fountain, where a demon grins and sends a child into its mouth, which is creepy to see. The demon had a bag hanging from his waist containing several children. To the devil, children are just food for hunger.
Regarding the prototype of the child-eating demon, some people believe that it is the Kronos in Greek mythology, that is, the son of Uranos, the god of the sky, and Gaia, the god of the earth. Kronos overthrew his father's rule, so fearing that his rule would be overthrown by his heirs, he swallowed all his children, but Zeus survived. Later Kronos spat out the devoured child again.
Is Bern really the capital?
According to the ranking of Swiss cities, Bern can only rank third at most, behind Geneva and Zurich. The population of Bern (about 130,000) is even less than that of Basel (about 170,000).
Why did Bern become the capital of Switzerland?
In 1848, the Swiss Confederation was established, and the establishment of a federal capital was imminent. On the shortlist, Zurich itself is the economic centre of Switzerland, and a further political centre would affect the balance of power of the federal cantons.
Lucerne, the nucleus of the anti-Federalist bloc, opposed the formation of the Swiss Confederation by force during the 1847 War of Independence, so it was impossible for the "anti-federalists" of Lucerne to become the capital.
Most of Switzerland is German-speaking, while Geneva is French-speaking and therefore cannot be recognized by german-speaking. Not to mention that Geneva later became the city of "nations", the seat of the League of Nations.
With its position in the middle, strong enough to threaten the independence of the cantons, Bern became the ultimate winner.
However, calling Bern the "capital of Switzerland" is not accurate.
On 28 November 1848, the Bundestag decided to make Bern a federal city, and Bern became the seat of the Swiss Federal Parliament and the Federal Government. But there is still no law stipulating that Bern is the capital of Switzerland, although the city houses most of the country's state organs.
Bern's status is more awkward, it is clear that it is the actual capital, but it is not recognized by law. Since the end of the last century, under the principle of "decentralization" in Switzerland, a number of government agencies such as the Federal Supreme Administrative Court, the Federal Statistical Office, and the Federal Communications Agency have moved from Bern to other cities to prevent Bern from becoming dominant.
This is perhaps the only non-legendary, non-fiction true story in this article.
What other cities are called or called "ghost towns"? Welcome to leave a message.
For more interesting city stories, please pay attention to the public account: The Fantasist Who Rushed to the Sky.