Basel

To complete our tour of the Rhine river and the northern border of Switzerland, we traveled to the city of Basel on Sunday. There was a non-stop train from Zürich, taking us just under 1 hour to reach the city. The airport in Basel also serves France and Germany as it is located on the borders of the three countries, so when we disembarked at the Bahnhoff, there was a sign directing people to Basel city or France. The trams in Basel were decorated in bright greens and yellows, quite a surprise compared to the white and blue trams of Zürich (probably those colors because they are the official colors of the canton of Zürich). It was a spectacular day of sunshine and relative warmth - compared to our chilly birdwatching day on Saturday (that story is for another post). We had brought bread, cheese and apples along so we walked across a bridge over the Rhine and sat on the river steps for lunch. This proved to be less relaxing than it sounds because it looked like someone was eventually going to end up in the water between hopping up and down the stairs or peering over for a closer look at the ducks. The buildings along the Rhine had dates on them in the 1300-1400s and were all very architecturally interesting. We decided to investigate the oldest part of the original city and hopped on a water taxi that was an old wooden boat attached to a cable spanning the river. Then on the other side we climbed up the steep staircase to the cathedral and square. Near this spot they had excavated some Celtic ruins underneath the streets and we could peer down through the plexiglass to see the stone wall, small grave, and various other artifacts from the year 80 A.D. After walking the cobblestone streets, we stopped for an ice cream snack by the Rathaus, an impressive huge ornate, red decorated building which has served as the town hall since the 1400s. Throughout the day we had seen huge groups of people walking around with drums and piccolos. We learned that this was the last Sunday after the Fasnacht (like Mardi Gras) celebration where the registered groups get to walk through the city playing the traditional Morgestraich melody. The Fasnacht carnival starts at 4 am the Monday following Ash Wednesday and lasts for 3 days. That first morning, they turn off all the city lights and only lanterns held by the marching groups provide the light as they proceed through the streets. Our last hours in Basel were spent at the Kunstmuseum (art museum) where we looked at a special exhibit of Picasso and some of the paintings from the 1500-1900s. Elisabet really liked the pictures of Christ hanging on the cross- they can be pretty gruesome, hence the fascination. She also kept asking "how did THAT person die". Leif liked to read what the paintings were supposed to be about, and Hanna liked seeing the difference of the Impressionist paintings from up close to far away. We were surprised at how long they all stayed interested with the exhibits. When we made our way back to the main station, we saw the non-stop train for Zürich was leaving in 2 minutes and so we all took off at a sprint and hopped on just before it pulled away. This was satisfying because previously when we had close connections we had missed them by only seconds- such a disappointment, even if they do come every 20 or 30 minutes.