Yaro and I moved to Bern in 2010 because it seemed to us to provide the best opportunity for me to find employment closely matching my education (if not my profession). I immediately fell in love with the town. I have a thing for medieval architecture and Bern is an almost perfectly preserved medieval town (if you ignore the late 20th C brutalist intrusions) and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is literally picture perfect, and for all the years I’ve lived here, I’ve never been able to resist taking photos. In addition to the town, there is the Aare river that runs through it—an aquatic marvel of clean blue-green water that surrounds the old town. Water is my favorite element by far, and in the summer I join what seems like the whole population for a ride through the city on what I think of as the world’s greatest amusement park ride.

Other cities in Switzerland boast mountains and lakes, and all are stunning, but Bern has become my home. Small but not too small, close enough to the big cities to be there in an hour, Bern is perfectly located in the center of Switzerland to access the rest of the country and to quickly venture into France, Italy, and Germany. Despite spending a decade here, I never tire of wandering the city, which is full of odd corners and endless surprises.