To Switzerland it was then. Somehow I managed to negotiate my way through the ridiculously overpriced Swiss public transport, changed trains in Zurich without incident, and arrived safely in Bern to visit my old exchange student buddy Fabiana. Except that I found myself alone, with no credit on my mobile, and Fabs nowhere in sight.

Turns out it makes rather a significant difference whether you turn right or left after disembarking from the train, and I managed to unwittingly put about 2kms of distance between the two of us before she finally caught up with me. Nevertheless, it was a happy but breathless reunion because she was parked in a no standing zone, so 60 francs worth of parking fine later we made it to her home safe and sound, cursing the parking police and their blasted Swiss efficiency.

I spent the entire weekend gorging myself on about twelve meals per day of strawberries swimming in cream and yoghurt, plus salty chocolate croissants for breakfast, pre-morning tea, morning tea, post-morning tea, lunch, pre-afternoon tea, afternoon tea, etc etc, and marveling at what a truly perfect city Bern is.

All the downtown terraces are perfect with their perfect little red rooves and perfect BMW lined streets and perfect pine trees and perfect churches and perfect cleanliness, and most of all perfectly lovely people. It seemed that everyone was rich, beautiful and spoke at least five languages fluently and studied either medicine or law, and were all perfectly nice to boot.

Fabs’s delightful boyfriend took us on a tour of the old city on the back of his vintage Vespa which putted around a bit with both of us girls squashed on behind him, but made up in style and charm what it lacked in oomph. No better way to potter around in Europe!