Berne identities.... Camp Lucerne

We completed twelve days in Switzerland yesterday and it was symbolic that we got a glimpse of the non touristy face of the country on the sane day.

K wanted to check out the Museum of Psychology at Bern. I wanted to check out the Chinese restaurant at Bern station. So we jumped into a train from Lucerne and headed to Bern.

The museum was well into the city and it didn't seem to be part of the main attractions. We reached there after a number of bus changes. It was apparent why too many tourists don't go there. It was an old mental hospital which was converted into a Museum come school for psychiatry. Just up K's street as she has studied psycholgy and it's her passion.

The problem was that it was all in German. K was excited first and then crestfallen as it was all Greek to her.

We headed back.

We got to see another side to Bern as we returned to the central, touristy part of the city.

I had earlier gushed about the lovely buildings and cobbled streets of central Bern?

Well we had strayed into its underbelly. Empty streets. Rows of clinical, coldhouses. Reminiscent of the world behind the Iron Curtain of yore. Very different from the picture postcard Switzerland that we had seen so far. This part of Bern was far bleaker than the Bern I had fallen in love with.

I was so relieved to get back to the fairyland of Unesco's heritage section of Old Bern.

I am on a holiday. I am an escapist. I want the full blown Yash Chopra 70 mm experience,not a black and white Mrinal Sen on vacation. If I want stark reality I will head to Chinchpokli in Mumbai.

Freud would have smiled somewhere. We got a glimpse of the Schizophrenia of the country on a day when we were headed to a Psychologie Museum. Perhaps a rub off Satnam Sanghera's excellent 'Boy in the top knot' which I am reading here? Schizophrenia features prominently there after all.

Notes: Like old Albert and his wife, I fully acknowledge K as an equal partner on the post as she suggested the theme and the heading. What the hell, she started finely chopped and named that as well as faraway diaries for me. So like Albert I too promise that if I ever win a Nobel for blogging, she gets it ... we'll leave the percentage vague shall we?