Milliners, Masons and One for Tom

So today Nadja and I took a tour of shops and Market Day in Bern. Market Day is like our Farmer's Market in the US. Lots and lots of veggies and fruit and beautiful flowers! Oooo Lala! I didn't take any pictures because... well, most folks know what a Farmer's Market looks like, right?

But something you may not be familiar with is a milliner's shop. There are all these little shops along covered stone walkways, including many artists who have workshops and a store to sell their work right in the same place. You can often see them at work as you browse their shop window.

I was delighted to find this milliner's window. So, of course, I brought out my camera to immortalize this artist's work. But look closely at the background of this photo of a fine pink and red hat... can you see the shape of a woman in the background? That is the milliner. She came running out of her workshop to yell at me for taking a photo of her window. Hmmmm. I thought shop windows are for people to see and admire. Perhaps even to take a photo to home with you, and maybe give to your rich grandmother who says she must have that hat and then you make a long distance call and arrange to buy the hat for your rich grandmother... but obviously not.


Enough complaining.

Next we came across a very unusual door. It was the door to an apartment that sits across from the big stone clock tower that all the tourists flock to at noon to see the little characters dance around and the big metal guy at the top of the tower bong the huge bell. But I digress. Look carefully at the character in this photo. It is a monkey (a male monkey, btw, with the same problem as that bear had yesterday). The monkey is holding a pick ax and something else... not sure what. Below this monkey, on the door itself was the following...


Can you see the symbols in the metal work? There is a couple of pick axes, a caliper, some mallets and a square. And a few other things that I can't identify. We decided this used to be the residence of a mason or stone cutter. What do you think?

Now, last but definitely not least, here is a photo just for Tom. Nadja and I were walking along a wall that surrounds a park near a huge cathedral, and below the wall the earth fell away many stories. Along one area were lovely cascading gardens with steps leading from one to another. I could imagine Tom working in one of these gardens and then coming in to the house (with a red ceramic tiled roof, of course) for some fine bread and Swiss cheese, and maybe a peligrino.