Daytrip to Basel ~ تخت سارا

Helvetia with a Seagull on her head

On Saturday, January 18, 2014, I woke up early in the morning and hopped the train to Basel. Basel is a city divided into two parts by the Rhine River as it cuts its way through Europe and sits right on the Swiss border with Germany. The German part of Switzerland is very different from the Francophone part (and I'm sure the Italian and Romansch parts that I have yet to visit). I've been in Geneva long enough to get used to hearing French that I don't understand in the background, and now on this trip, the background sounds completely changed and it took a bit to get used to hearing Swiss German filling the space. Swiss German is cute though, much more sing-songy than German-German (or "High German" as they call it) with different vocabulary.

Most of the train ride was uneventful, although it did start with me getting rather unceremoniously booted out of first class. It must have been an older train because when I hopped on, it looked exactly like the second class section of the Swiss trains I previously rode. When the SBB ticket man came to check the tickets, he examined mine and asked me some questions in French and Swiss German. I assumed he was asking to see ID or my half-pass for the Swiss rails, so I coolly flashed both cards. He then told me in English that this was first class and I couldn't sit there. I said, "oh, okay," but he he stood there blocking me from stepping into the aisle until I had packed up all my stuff and turned left to walk down to the much older second class seating. This is the Hollywood reenactment of that scene:

Once I got to Basel, the tourist office people in the train station were very helpful and gave me maps of the city and the public transportation trams and buses. It was still too early for some things to be open, but I made my way over to the Kunstmuseum ("art museum," in German) and started walking through the Altstadt ("old town," in German). The old town in Basel was beautiful, and the Munsterplatz (plaza in front of the cathedral) was empty so early on a Saturday morning. I walked along the old streets, past a Basalisk fountain, and through winding streets with houses dating back to the 1300s.

Basalisk fountain (I thought the Basalisk would be bigger)

Basel Gargoyle

Stairway down to the River and Bakery

Shops along the Rhine in Basel

When I got to the river, I walked through some shops to a bakery to grab something for breakfast. I ate the pastry by the Rhine River, and then walked back up this stairway between old houses to get back to the Munsterplatz to enter the cathedral. The outside of the cathedral is bright red, and the inside was gorgeous as well.

From the cathedral, I made my way back through the old town to cross the Mittlere Rheinbrucke ("middle bridge over the Rhine"). The bridge itself is lined with flags of all the different cities and cantons in the area.

On the opposite side of the bridge, there is a statue of Helvetia, the Greek symbol of Switzerland. The "CH" in all official Swiss things stands for "Confederation of Helvetia," the original Greek name for Switzerland that it still bears to this day. Helvetia is also on the back of the 5 CHF coin. On the bridge, she sits with her spear and suitcase, overlooking the town along the Rhine.

After wandering around some more, I hopped back on a bus to take me outside of the city over to some Roman Ruins. My walk took me around the city again, including passing by the bright red town hall building, another church, and the Tinguely Fountain.

GREAT DANES!!!!!!!!!

Here's the other church:

And behind that, the modern art Tinguely Fountain. The fountain was built in 1977 on the location where the old city's theatre stage used to be. The new theatre is right next to the fountain. The fountain also has moving pieces in it, so it's fun to just sit next to it, in the shade or sun, and listen to the water move through the different parts of the fountain.

The bus stop was right next to the Hammering Man statue. Apparently there are giant Hammering Man statues in different cities in the world, but one of them is in Basel.

When I got to the end of the line and the stop necessary for the Roman Ruins, I realized that from the stop, I still had about another half hour of walking to do. I wasn't really feeling up for spending that time walking when there was more to see in the city, so I hopped back on the next bus available to go back to the city center. Since I had some time left before needing to go back to the train station to return to Geneva, I decided to visit the Kunstmuseum. The Museum is one of the oldest public art collections in Europe.

No pictures were allowed inside the museum, but I wrote down the names of the artists and paintings that I liked the most. There was quite a variety in the collection, from more classical and traditional pieces to modern and contemporary art. The museum itself was quite large and a beautiful building in its own right. I wrote down the names of the artists and paintings that I liked the most from the various exhibits, but the list is quite long (and this is the narrowed-down version). The museum also had paintings by several artists who painted landscapes of Switzerland, such as Ferdinand Hodler, for whom a street is named in Geneva.

Claude Monet: