Of all Swiss cities, BERN is most immediately charming. Founded in 1191 by the powerful local Zähringen dynasty, it began life as a fortress town peopled by knights. The growth of the Swiss Confederation in subsequent centuries owed much to the conquests of the warlike Bernese. Crammed onto a steep-sided peninsula in a crook of the fast-flowing River Aare, the city's quiet, cobbled lanes, lined with sandstone arcaded buildings, have changed barely at all in over five hundred ... [More]