Thun Castle

Last Friday, while Laura's friends were visiting, we all went to Thun. Her friends hadn't seen a castle yet, and so we thought that they might like to see the one in Thun since it is quite large and impressive.

The Thun castle sits up on a hill above the city, and is a very nice castle shaped castle. It has four round turrets and a huge hipped roof (I'm not sure what hipped means, but it's in the architectural notes). The castle has been there since at least 1200 (based on dendrological testing of the rafters in the great room) and has seen battles and even fratricide. It contains one of the largest and best preserved great halls in the area (though, it seems to me that every attraction in Switzerland is "The Best Ever", "The Greatest Example Of" and so on, I'm starting to not believe it anymore. In any case, the Great Room (or Knights' Hall) is just that: A large room. In fact, all the rooms in the Thun castle take up the whole floor of the inner building between the turrets. The Knights' Hall just has a higher ceiling. The ceiling in the Knights' Hall was stained with ox blood but is now black with soot. When the room was not being used for ceremonial purposes, it served as a smoke house, a grainery and a torture chamber. Then I suppose they'd sweep the floors, mop up the blood, roll out the nice carpet, bring the throne in and have a party. Nice.

We walked up the stairs into the Knights' Hall and then continued on through one of the turrets up to the attic. I like visiting castles and museums around here because I get to see things that are older than 800 years old or so--unlike anything we can see at museums in the states--well, unless you count Native American artifacts, but those baskets and beaded clothing items seem much more peaceful and mundane than bloody spears and battle flags--Ok, but the attic of the Thun castle was Not full of instruments of death and conflict, but rather a display dedicated to the Thun theatre association and their production of Faust. Boring. I was dissapointed that my 7 francs went to a forced-viewing of an advertisement for a theatre company.

After the disappointment of the attic and turret rooms (they were round prison cells, which had awfully nice views), we went back through the Knights' Hall and to the floors below. We also saw a room full of old toys--about 100 years old--and a small organ that was installed on a ship that sailed on the Thunersee. We put 50 rapon in it and when it started to play everyone jumped, and then groaned. Ha. Below that room was the display of battle flags and bloody spears. The people of Thun showed that they were not sissies in the 14th century during the Battle of Murton and the flag that they carried into battle that day was on display. Also, there were several medieval tapestries, including one that a rich widow donated to the church to ensure her eternal salvation, as well as the salvation of her family and close friends. What? I guess that's the out of control behavior that went on before Reformation.

From the Thun castle we walked back through the Old Town. I really wanted to rent a boat and row around the lake but when we got about 15 minutes past the train station we gave up and headed back to town. On the way back, we passed a Liquidation Super World. Well, I can't remember what it was called, but it was a warehouse full of magnificent crap. I've never seen anything like it in Switzerland before--because this country is too classy to have warehouses where things go to die. I bought a new espresso cup and a tube of super glue that turned out to be empty (that's how they can sell it so cheap! you don't actually get any glue) and a candy bar that tasted like it was about as old as the castle. It was so bad, I couldn't even eat it.
Even though I didn't get to rent a boat, and the castle was somewhat disappointing I had a nice trip to Thun. I'd like to go back and try to tour the town again because I didn't even go in the church, and what's a European Vacation if you don't see every old church you can?

PS: I found all these pictures using The Google.