Bern shakes – Bärner Summer

Putting one foot in front of the other. The dust of the dry ground whirls up. The heat becomes more and more unbearable. The sun shines directly on us, my brown hair gets hotter and hotter. My legs get heavier and heavier. My little backpack weighs a ton after the twenty minutes uphill, the sun is burning more and more.

Red cheeks. A glittering forehead. Struggling for air. Out of breath. My lungs are on fire. Taking a deep breath – enjoying the fresh air. Something to drink in the hands. A huge smile on the lips. Looking down at the city at our feet. Continuing laughing. Wait – open the bag. Here we go. The Gurtenfestival. Whole of Bern is on its feet and is on its way from the valley station up to Bern’s local mountain – the Gurten.

The hardscrabble ascent is rewarded with a breathtaking view of the city of Bern, which can also be enjoyed from the tent stage. In the evening, melancholy floods you when you sit comfortably in the grass with friends, drink a beer, eat crêpe with it and look down on your homeland. Deep conversations lead (in a somewhat drunk state) home what is that? Actually, just a word I don’t like, I don’t want to limit myself to a place, a city or a country. I am at home everywhere and yet nowhere. But my heart tells me that my family and many of my friends live here, so it is my home.

The first time I was in summer 2014 at the Gurtenfestival, at the age of 14. I started with one day visiting the festival, which quickly increased to every four days. Since then the festival is every year a part of my summer (except one year when I wasn’t in Switzerland). The mood on the Gurten is hard to put into words, music, conversation, laughter and singing all the sounds are present on the mountain. There are different stands and three stages on which the bands play, and there is a lot of grass to sit on when your legs get tired or you want to take a short nap.

Besides the music, the Gurtenfestival is also the meeting point of the year, Bern is a small town and people you haven’t seen for ages can be seen again at the festival. There you meet your teachers, employers, pupils, childhood friends and of course many people from other cantons who came to Bern especially for these four days. Families and senior citizens also like to come to the local mountain – but then they disappear again in the night before the real hustle and bustle begins. The Gurtenfestival is just as much a part of Bern as the bears, which gave the city its name. By June at the latest, the usual question will open up in the circle of friends: “Geisch ufe güsche? (Do you go on the Gurten?); so, the festival is a well-known theme in the city and plays an important role in youth at the latest. The Berner city mountain has been lovingly given the second name “Güsche” by us. I don’t know any Berner at my age, who has never been to the Gurten Festival before. It therefore belongs to the culture of our city.

For many of my friends, festival time begins with packing up all their camping gear and making their way to the Eichholz. There they pitch their tents and already sleep before the Gurtenfestival starts with much anticipation next to our river the Aare. They think there is nothing better than to wake up the next morning after a night of carousing (mostly they hide the point that they wake up by the heat of the sun, which warms the tent so hard that you can’t sleep in it anymore), to open the tent and see our river the Aare in front of them. They get up, put on their swimsuits, throw themselves into the floods and drift to the Marzili outdoor pool. Where they fight against the current, reach the exit and climb out of the tides refreshed. Right next to the Marzili is a bakery where breakfast is bought and eaten on the way back to the tent. As nice as these morning moments may sound (they start at eight o’clock in the morning at the latest – you can’t sleep any longer in the tent), I prefer to torture myself every year to get home in the evening and sleep in a comfortable bed as long as I want and have my own shower.

I made it through the entrance check and am waiting for my friends to have their bags checked. We first get a rain pelerine at a stand that distributes it for free – safety first, on the last day of the harnessing it often starts to pour like clouds. We listen to the band playing right now. We lay down in the grass and enjoy the sun, the cool beer creates a good temperature balance. The plan for the day is discussed, who wants to hear which bands, where they play and who wants to listen in front or rather sitting comfortably from behind in the grass.

We move from stage to stage, dance, sing, cheer and enjoy the music. In between we have dinner and again and again you meet friends with whom you talk. The day passes incredibly fast, before we realize it, it has become dark and cold. We put on our sweaters, nevertheless it is still too cold, and we freeze, against it only helps to mingle with the crowd and dance. Depending on tiredness, temperature and mood we go home between midnight and the early morning hours. Traditionally we get a warm coffee before we make our way back, go down the mountain or take the gondola down – both are fun. In the gondola we have a wonderful view of the sleeping city, which we now get closer and closer to until we are swallowed by it, in order to become a part of it. In the gondola people laugh, but most of them are tired and drink their last beer. Suddenly you hear a quiet singing “W. Nuss vo Bümpliz isch schön wie es füür ider nacht” and before we realize it our lips and those of the people standing around us move. The whole gondola sings together a Swiss song by Patent Ochsner until we arrive at the Gurten station.

Arriving at the valley station we run to the bus that takes us to the main station, from there we get on our bicycles and pedal, with a broad grin on our faces, overjoyed but still very tired we walk the last meters that separate us from our bed. A wonderful and unforgettable day with many lasting memories comes to an end. Before we sleep, we clarify when we want to meet the next day. I set the alarm clock, realize that I can only sleep six hours and fall into my bed tired. I think of the coming day and look forward to everything that will await me, my eyes close enthusiastically and I fell asleep with a smile on my lips “bärn ig ha di haut eifach scho gärn” (Bern I just love you already).

To all readers who don’t like facts you have already reached the end here: 😉.

I could now say how many great artists our local mountain has already accommodated, but that would be rather boring, but it has to be anyway (the “biggest” Bads since 2009) – here you go: Bonaparte, Silbermond, Eluveitie, Pendulum, Seven, Kummerbuben, Patent Ochsner, Kings of Leon, The Script, The Kooks, John Butler Trio, Amy Macdonald, Milow, Lenny Kravitz, Norah Jones, Snow Patrol, The Roots, Jan Delay, Gorillaz Sound System, Fritz Kalkbrenner, Parov Stelar Band, Kraftklub, Die Toten Hosen, Die Fantastischen Vier, Hurts, Emeli Sandé, Volbeat, Triggerfinger, Imagine Dragons, Bastille, Zaz, Alex Hepburn, Massive Attack, Placebo, The Prodigy, Franz Ferdinand, Everlast, Biffy Clyro, Cypress Hill, The Kooks, Kodaline, Milky Chance, Parov Stelar Band, Bastian Baker, Modestep, Ellie Goulding, Cro, Patent Ochsner, Patti Smith, Casper, Muse, Passenger, Travis, Boys Noize, Namika, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Imagine Dragons, Fritz Kalkbrenner, Beginner, Casper, House of Pain, Marteria, Rag’n’Bone Man, Gorillaz, Prophets of Rage, Alt-J, Angus & Julia Stone, MØ, Faber and LP (LP is the one in the photo holding my hand).