across the border: chivalry, soup and snow

It was my turn to travel last weekend – partly to save Juan 5 hours of driving, but also to catch up with our UK friends, Antje and John. We met at the Yverdon thermal baths and soaked and chatted and sweated, and soaked some more – until we were woozy with the heat, our skin was wrinkled to hell and it was time to retreat to Juan's flat. His first visitors!

I threw together a pasta carbonara, using the floor as a work surface (space is limited). Evidence that we haven't yet joined blue-rinse respectability? We then spent an hour watching "The Fast Show" on a 20 x 15 cm screen on Juan's iPad. No, clearly we have one foot in the grave if we aren't projecting onto the wall and watching with 3D specs...

On the Saturday we went our separate ways, Juan and I enjoying a couple of hours at the little ski resort at Ste Croix.

view towards Bernese Oberland

On Sunday, in Thun (in the German-speaking part of the country) this is what greeted us in the car park:

Yes, in CH men are supposed to be chivalrous, and allow women to park in the spaces nearest the exit. Never mind that in Juan's company, where 40 engineers are employed, not one of them is a woman.

Thun is a rather gorgeous place, stuffed with classy shops. We strolled along the canal that opens onto Lake Thun, past the spot where Brahms stayed during the summers of 1886–8. This is what he would have seen from the house (no longer standing) –  minus the snow, of course:

The Cello Sonata in F major, Violin Sonata in A major, and Piano Trio in C minor were all written in Thun in 1886. Brahms wrote to his future biographer Max Kalbeck, "It's absolutely magnificent here. By the way, I'd also just mention that there's a ton of Biergartens.…".

On a bleak January afternoon Buff's lovely warm Christmas present was purrfect...

The Kunstmuseum, one of the few buildings open, entertained us with some modern Swiss art:

CH continues to baffle – and amuse –  me. At the Kunstmuseum café what was on the menu for lunch? Soup. And only soup. "Es ist gut", said the waiter. Well, ok, could we have two bowls of soup, please...
Juan tells me that the Swiss French for "supper" is "souper". So there you have it – we were all having soup for supper in our medieval pasts...

And there's an intriguing practical trait: the (murderous) two-person T-bars in the ski resorts, which avoid queues building up but are absolutely terrifying to use; the kerbless pavements which give priority to pedestrians without squeezing the traffic (maybe this can only work in a country as rule-abiding as CH).

 man taking photo of ducks...