On day two, our only full day in Bern, we decided to walk around Old Town and find all the 16th century Renaissance fountains and see the Zytglogge, the clock tower with its medieval astronomical clock. We wanted to be there on the hour to see the mechanical figures move. Click here to see a map of all the fountains.
We arrived at the Zytglogge in time to hear the hour struck and to watch the animated figures move. There is a Jester and a rooster that crows, and, of course because this is Bern, there were animated bears moving in a circle.
Bern means bear, and the images of bears are all around Bern. There is a story that Berchtold V, the 12th century Duke of Zahringer, vowed to name the city after the first animal he came across while out hunting, which happened to be a bear. There is a fountain called the Zahringerbrunnen which honors the founding family. It depicts a warrior bear in a helmet.
There are fountains that depict Samson killing a lion, a piper, a banner carrier, Justice, Moses, and a fountain to honor Anna Seiler, a 14th-century woman who left money in her will to establish Bern’s first hospital.
As this is Bern there are bears on the fountains too. The marksman fountain has a bear aiming a gun, the messenger fountain has a bear in a messenger’s outfit. The Ryfflibrunnen, named after a famous crossbowman, has a small armored bear at his feet. The most bizarre fountain, the Kindlifresserbrunnen, shows an ogre eating babies. At the base of the ogre fountain, there is a frieze of marching bears.
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