After a late breakfast on the patio in the mountain sun, an Aussie friend of the Vizzards who also lives in Anzere (another Peter) came across with some friends who live in Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains in NSW. Since they are often subject to bushfire threat, we soon found we had many topics of mutual interest and quickly fell into conversation. We exchanged cards and promised to keep in touch

Later that morning we went for a short walk along the lower bisse to a favourite spot of Peter’s where he can contemplate the mountains on the other side of the valley.

All too soon, however, we had to pack up and take our leave to drive to Bern where we were to stay at Kuno’s old house on the River Aare. That evening we went for a walk down the Aare, and ended up having dinner at an old favourite haunt of Rita’s (Restaurant Altenberg) right on the Aare, where we gazed up at the Kornhausbrücke Bridge.

After dinner, we walked over the footbridge under the Kornhausbrücke, on the way passing a cat making the most of the evening sun, and made our way up the hill to the centre of old Bern.

As we walked past the shops under the arcades, I was reminded of just how expensive Switzerland was, when we saw this display in the Bally clothing store - check out the prices!! These are in Swiss Francs which are now almost parity with the Euro. In Australian dollars, this lot would cost about $4500 - and they’re not really great clothes. More money than sense!

As we walked across the Munster Platform on our way back to Kuno’s, Rita recognised a couple of old friends, Harre and Deila, sitting at one of the tables at the cafe. Harre was a colleague of Rita’s when she worked in transport in Bern, and I realised later that I had also met him once in 1998 when I was living in Bern. We sat down at their table and had a beer, and they explained that they now live 9 months of the year in Brazil (Deila is Brazilian) and were just back in Bern for summer. We talked for quite a while and then went back to the apartment they are living in (just across the road from Gere’s) where an impromptu Portugese band was playing in the street in front of a cafe, whenever the police were not around. As we left after midnight, one of the female band members was busy chatting with two young policemen at the back of the group, while the band wound up it’s performance at the front.