Author: Arko Oderwald

One of my favorite walks in Bern is to slowly walk down the covered Kramgasse and then the Gerechtigkeitsgasse. Just before the bridge over the Aare that leads to the famous bear pit, which fortunately is no longer a bear pit, you descend to the left of the road to the banks of the Aare. You can follow the road, but you can also take a covered staircase. Once you reach the bottom, you walk past houses that occasionally suffer from extremely high water levels in the Aare, which flows quite wildly here. Eventually, you will arrive at a road directly along the Aare and walk down to the Kirchenfeldbrücke. This bridge was opened in 1883, initially only for horse traffic and pedestrians. Now cars and trams drive over it, so the bridge has been reinforced several times. The bridge is 37 meters high.

We are standing near the Tagus River on R. dos Bacalhoeiros, in front of an olive tree. That olive tree is not here by chance. Beneath that tree lies José Saramago, or at least his ashes. Next to the tree is the text

Warning for the non-Dutch reader: As you know, this is originally a Dutch website, so now and then you will stumble upon some very Dutch, or, in this case, Flemish content. This episode of on the spot is about a famous Flemish poet. This may give some problems with the translation of his poems, but we hope you still enjoy it.