Petinesca (4/10/1983)

Sunday, April 10, 1983

At 9:00 I prepared pancakes for breakfast with Marsha C. Looking from the Personalhaus, you could see a cloud cover, the Alps, and fog rising from the Seeland.

View of the Alps and fog in the Seeland

Marsha was going to a country music concert today.
I walked down to the train station, seeing Sonia being pushed by her older brother Maurizio; I don’t know if Sonia will come back to Kindergarten. At the train station I bought a Bern newspaper to check out movie times and locations. I returned to the Personalhaus, then left to meet Jan & Kirby at 12:00. We decided to go to Petinesca, driving off to Studen and getting off the highway. We saw a Wanderweg/hiking trail sign for Petinesca, the Roman ruins. We parked the car and hiked up past a couple houses to see the remains of a gate tower. We weren’t sure if that was all to see, so continued following the Wanderweg signs into the woods. We found a sign for the Temple area and continued up a hill into a forest with the spring flowers coming up: violets, white snowdrops, primroses. We came to foundations for double-walled temples. One was rebuilt with an inner wall in 1937-38, in an area of about seven temples.

Roman temple ruins

Kirby and Jan

We found the remains of several more and decided to try to find the Chnebellberg area, a hillock surrounded by a ditch, the questionable remains of a pre-Christian civilization with a possible Stonehenge-type purpose. We finally came to a sign that said Chnebelberg - 610 m. We started walking around a “moat” before we realized that 610 m was the altitude, and we were at Chnebelberg! Kirby and I walked around and Jan climbed up. Later I climbed to the top of the hillock that was free of  undergrowth with spread out trees with leaf litter underfoot. At one end was a 1904 survey marker and cemented remains of cornerstones or columns. We scrambled back own to meet Kirby, and quick-marched back to the car by 14:15.

Student forest hut

Jan drove fast to Bern, arriving at 14:45 and managed to find a parking space. We ran up Kramgasse, dodging people and arcade columns, to the Cinema Capitol. Bought tickets and hurried into the pitch dark theater. The movie itself hadn’t started yet as we groped our way to seats to see “Garp.”

"Garp" movie ticket

Afterwards we went to McDonald’s, then the train station for Kirby to buy cigarettes. Then to Mövenpick for ice cream and coffee. On the drive home, we had great views of the Alps and the Jura (Chasseral). We got off the highway at Chasseral to take the scenic route through Rapperswil and crossed the covered bridge at Büren an der Aare. Through Meinisberg and Orpund back to Biel. I stopped at Jan & Kirby’s to look at tax forms.