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Off The Rails in Switzerland: Basel bound

Travel & Tourism

24/10/2008Off The Rails in Switzerland: Basel bound

InterRail ticket in hand, editor Paul Morris decided to visit all six Expatica countries in the summer of '08.

Basel art exhibition puts spotlight on Venice

Ten places to visit in Switzerland

I could have been lying spread-eagled on a golden beach, inhaling pina coladas through twisty straws and watching the sun go down over some exotically entitled bay. Instead (I am sure I was dropped on my head as a child, perhaps more than once) I elected to take to the rails for (on and off) four weeks and have a peep at all six countries in which expatica has sites: Belgium, France, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Spain.

My first stop was the Swiss town of Basel (Bâle in French, Basilea in Italian and in Romansh). So good they named it thrice...

SNCF on the march

I liked the town immediately, especially since the Hotel Victoria was directly opposite the main station, saving me the hassle of lugging my bags through the streets. (In fact later on in my trip, in Rotterdam, about ten of us travellers attempted to pass a local man, our luggage wheels creating an almighty din on the pavement. He almost went insane, covering his ears in dramatic fashion).

Hotel Victoria's Train Bleu café

First impressions bode well: at the reception I was a handed a free transport ticket for the duration of my stay and the town has excellent tram and bus links.

Still on the rails...

I headed directly for the river - the temperature was in the high 30s - and found that Basel folks make great use of the Rhine ((Rhein, Rhin, Reno, Rain). Paddling my feet, I could see that it was amazingly clean, probably because Europe's longest river starts close to here, in the Swiss Alps. Locals take to the waters...

morning...

I think he was saying to her, "Did you know that the Rhine discharges on average more than 2,000 cubic meters per second? Not many people know that..."

noon...

and night...

In fact every night young people cling to these banks, knocking back strong liquor till the wee small hours. I wondered how many revellers were lost to these night-time waters every year, some lucky survivors no doubt showing up, dazed and confused, in the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta in the Netherlands over 1,000 kms away.

The ferry (not included in transport pass for some reason)

Safer altogether is the ferry service across the river, driven by a cable-pulley system which ingeniously uses the river's downstream water to power it.

I was heading for the Tinguely Museum, highly recommended by a few friends and I wasn't disappointed. This is where art meets serious fun.

Skullduggery

This skull car was my favourite among many hilarious sculptures, including one you can climb into and be part of the moving structure..

But some of his works have to be witnessed on video so I used my Nikon Coolpix as a movie camera to capture (despite the low quality of the image) the man's whacky essence.

Goalpost urinals

On target

There's a lot more obviously to Basel but I'll leave you with an image from a pasta restaurant's gents toilet. Clearly the Euro 2008 tournament is not yet a distant memory.

Next Off The rails: suckling pigs in Germany...

For more information on InterRail passes click here.

text and photos copyright Paul Morris 2008