Splendor on the Rhine

What a difference a week makes . . .

As I write to you today about sunny, hot Basel which I visited just over a week ago, I’m writing from dreich, cool Glasgow.*

I’ve been feeling under the weather since coming back from the trip and not quite the same person that hiked in the Black Forest just days ago. I’m hoping that energy returns soon.

Meanwhile, I hope this brings a little beauty and enjoyment to your day and, frankly, to mine as well.

D.’s conference was in Freiburg, Germany, which is served by an airport that sits where the corner of three countries – Switzerland, France and Germany meet. I think it was the first time that I’ve been to an airport where different exits lead you to enter different countries.

We chose to visit nearby Basel, Switzerland for a couple of days before the conference, my first ever trip to Switzerland.

Basel is smaller than Zurich and Geneva, but definitely has a lot to offer. I was particularly captured by its location along the Rhine. After the build-up of memorizing and reciting German poetry about the Rhine so many years ago in Herr Becker’s German class at Reading High School, I found it was even more magical than expected due to some local traditions!

The weather in Basel was a scorching 95F/36C while we were there. Locals find a spot upstream, put all their things into a waterproof bag, hop in to the river, flow downstream with the bag as a flotation device, hop out and head back to where they started via land. With the weather being so warm, the water was full of bobbing bags (and people).

My main regret from the trip is that I didn’t borrow one of these bags from someone and hop in myself. It looked so fun.

Water was indeed a theme throughout Basel with lots of fountains – new and old – placed around the city and, a bit surprisingly to me, people immersing themselves in the fountains to stay cool.

Another thing that surprised us was how many bikes there were on the road, including ones with with kiddie wagons like below. Along with bikes were frequent trolleys and relatively few cars.

And oodles of historic charm? Indeed.

And there is a museum for everybody – a total of 40 in the city. We went to one on print and paper making, a couple of great art museums, but my favorite one of all is built on the door of someone’s home on a medieval alley. The owners had a problem with people peeping in the window of their ancient door as they passed by. They solved the peeping issue by putting up a display case on the window to showcase collections of miscellaneous items. Over time, as they ran out of their own collections, others shared things for a rotating exhibit of sorts. This time, a very clever set-up of model ships – check out the port hole!

We also found a number of musical troupes on the street – the one on the left were raising funds for school trip to a farm and the group on the right were taking lessons together at a local music school – the latter ones played a huge array of different kinds of flutes, some I had never seen before.

The below resident may look not so excited to be in Basel, but I found myself completely charmed. Hope you enjoyed this little tour as well.

Happy July 4th weekend to my fellow Americans!

*dreich is the Scots word for overcast – I think it has a Pennsylvania Dutch feel to it, no?