River Rafting from Thun to Bern in Switzerland

continued from part 9: Cycling from Lauterburren valley till Thun in Switzerland

The plan was to give away our cycles to back home and raft our way through river from Thun to Bern.  There is river which flows from city of Thun to Bern which is a capital,so idea was to relax and have some good time and float in the raft.  ;)

One can rent a raft here. They will give you map and also tell you where to stop. While rafting this river, you really need to keep an eye on the bridges and end points where you have to park your raft. If you miss the pit stops, then you may have to walk long back carrying the huge raft.

Here is the map. One is the raft route and other one is the top view the whole circuit belt which we did past 1 week .

We had to catch the train after dropping our raft at last point.

Below is whole Swiss belt which we covered in last one week.

The city of Thun from where we started our journey to way back home. We planned to rent raft from Thun and raft till the city of Bern. We planned to lunch at Bern and catch train to Zurich. Reaching Zurich will finish our week long trip in Swiss.

 Lake paffrikon in Thun where the last day's journey started.

The flow of river water is controlled from Thun. The river was so clean that you could just jump in without a thought. Now we were going towards low altitude, so the temperature was comfortable so jumping into the river sounded like a good idea.

Finally time to say goodbye to our cycles.  :(

Travelling from Thun to Bern by a raft is quite a cheap option. it costed us around 100CHF  and the rafts are huge. They also gave us a drum where you put our stuff and kept electronics gadget safe inside.

Water rapids are not dangerous and the water is crystal clear. This was a 40 kms long river route and the flow of river was slow. Therefore we had a lot of time for ourselves chilling. Sometimes we just sat in there talking about our last week and sometimes we just dip ourselves into river.

I am taking a power nap. Lolz...

40 kms is a long journey so if you want to pee, you take your raft ashore. Strictly no peeing in river!  :P

And we completed the "diversity" by finishing our tour by floating on the river Aare down to the capital of Switzerland:Bern. Zurich is the biggest city in Switzerland, the economic hub (and where Vinayak arrived by plane), while the Bern is the somewhat sleepy city where the political decisions are made. We handed our bicycles over to the railway staff who brought them back to Henrys home town, and we caught a rubber boat. There are several boat renting companies in Thun, as floating down to Bern is very popular among Swiss people.

There were three small rapids and one has to take care not hitting the pillars of bridges, but you could just hang in the boat for more than two hours and let the nature pass by. 

The landscape is not that special anymore - just flat - but you can take a break at a small stony beach and swim. We floated all the way till Bern and nearly missed the exit at the camping ground in Bern. If you go too far, you might end in a hydro power station. From the camping point it's a very popular to swim up to downtown, but with our (small) luggage, we couldn’t enjoy this refreshment. A decent part of the population of Bern normally walks up the river to swim back downtown.

 Bern: The capital of Switzerland.

We walked towards the house of parliament which sitting majestic on the ridge above the river valley, and finally we could get the good Indian food in an restaurant not far from the federal parliament.

Finally it was time to catch the train back home.

Even if you carry cycle around, there is normally quiet a lot of space inside train and cycles are allowed.

Finally we reached home after a week long trip, Henry was so happy to see family again :) 

I freshened up early to play with kids in the backyard and enjoying the sunset. :)

The pristine lake of Pfäffikon and the much needed sunset view.

This was our journey across Swiss mountain, villages, rivers and cities. Everything in life goes on, nothing stops, so did journey also. One can only live the moments, so I lived many such moments. These moments formed the core memories of my life, rather one of the best one.

Every journey has to end but its really important for us to make that choice and take the route and experience the moments. In the end of day life is series of moments and experiences.  :)