Basel – Not the herb

Sorry it’s late, but free WiFi is hard to come by.

We said our goodbyes to Montreux today and the day was not without it’s exciting (heart palpitating) moments.  We had a slow start due to the checkout time in Swiss hotels being noon (not 11:00am), and as we were only a short walk to the railway station, we made our way along the waterfront and saw the weekly market, some great looking produce and shoddy looking tchotchkes.  We arrived at the station just as one of the trains we could take was at the platform, but I didn’t feel like running with my luggage, so we decided to catch the next train, which was fortunate.  We had checked under the beds and in wardrobes as all good travellers do when they check out of a hotel; however we had completely forgotten our travel documents and Euros in the room safe.  Steve sprinted back to the hotel, retrieved our travel documents and money and made it back to the station for the next train – talk about world land speed record!  When we transferred trains in Lausanne we ended up on one of the tilting trains and man does it tilt.  Saw some more beautiful countryside and a whole lot of children out on hikes.  Total travel time from the South to the North about 2.75 hours.      

The Tram system in Basel is pretty amazing, the hotel provided instructions and we were delivered right to the front door of the hotel in about 10 minutes.  We checked in and again were provided with a pass for local transportation – what a great way to promote environmentally responsible local travel (it also doesn’t hurt when the local systems are so fantastic).  We ended up with the same room number we had in Montreux.  I’m a little disappointed in the Swissotel – it looks like a glass tower attached to a convention center, however the room is nice and the a/c works – which is important, as most days here have been above 25C, sometimes going over 30C.    We quickly dumped our luggage in the room and made our way out into old town Basel.

I really had only one thing that I absolutely had to see and that was Tinguelly’s fountain – I just loved it and I know that my nephews would too.  It’s made of mechanical structures that move and spout water – wait ‘til you see the videos I took.  We then made our way into the Tourism office to get a better idea of what to do and use their free WiFi.    We’re on the hunt for a special souvenir, so asked them to point out some specific stores and while heading there came across the Sprungli store which sells…you guessed it…chocolates.  To paraphrase Ferris Bueller – “they are so choice, if you ever get the opportunity I highly recommend you try them”. 

We continued our walk along the Rhine and probably put in 6 or 7 km of walking before it started to rain, so we headed back to the hotel to deal with our other headache of the day – our cruise documents didn’t provide an embarkation time for tomorrow, and our travel agent had not responded to our queries about it.  We tried calling the ship, but the connection sucked and I couldn’t understand a word they said, so I called the 800 number of our travel agent for assistance and of course – no one could answer our question.  So after spending 20CHF on long distance calls – I was irate and hungry and none the wiser.

We had a quiet meal at Schlusselzunft (spelled correctly), I had ostrich and Steve had sausage with rosti.  Both were very good.  We’ve now geared down for the night and have planned another grand adventure for tomorrow (swimmers will appreciate it)

A foundain by the modern artist, Paul Tinguely

 Grilled sausage with rosti.  The sauce was yummy!

A fountain of a dragon along the Rhine, and Lego dude riding the dragon.