Our recently completed Rhine River cruise ended in Basel,
Switzerland, a city sitting at the junction of three countries: Germany, France, and Switzerland. If you have traveled in Switzerland, you will
be aware that there are three official languages in the country—French, German,
and Italian. In addition, many people
also speak English which has become the common denominator across the country,
the European continent, and, in fact, most of the world. We Americans benefit greatly from this
fact. While many people around the world
speak two or three or even four languages, we Americans tend to speak just
one. Whether we are lazy or lucky or
both is open to debate.
But I digress.
Basel
is a charming, cultured city.
With our
friends Monica and Loren, we toured the old town, visited a couple of Christmas
markets, and felt quite proficient at getting about on the city’s tram
system.
The narrow, cobbled streets of
town are lined with historic old homes, renovated in keeping with their
original constructions.
(This photo of Monica and Loren isn't in Basel, but it is one of the few I took of them!)
Painted numbers
over some doorways indicate the year the house was first built.
Basel was essentially destroyed by a major earthquake
in the 1300s. This particular house is more than six hundred years old!
Scott noted that the city’s old cathedral had both Romanesque
and Gothic elements.
Our guide said,
yes, it had been begun in Romanesque style, with its rounder arches;
after the earthquake, however, pointed Gothic arches were used.
This detail on the outside wall of the cathedral shows Saint George slaying a small dragon. While the church was originally Catholic,
after the Reformation of the sixteenth century, it became a protestant house of
worship. Different reformers led
movements in individual Swiss city-states.
The result is a variety of protestant groups roughly organized as the Federation
of Swiss Protestant Churches.
We took a day trip by train to the beautiful mountain town
of Lucerne (Luzern) where we were rewarded with a wintery Alps wonderland. We started our visit outside the train station with a Rick Steves'
guidebook walking tour, narrated by Scott.
We were charmed by the painted wooden bridges
joining the two parts of Luzern, by a gorgeous Jesuit church, and by lunch in
a small café we happened into. This bridge was built more than six hundred years ago and was decorated with a series of paintings three hundred years ago, telling about the history of Luzern and the aristocratic families living there.
Two interesting things about the Jesuit church, which was built about 1670, and this photo: The gorgeous pink marble throughout the church is actually stucco with bits of ground marble added. The man depicted here is the only Swiss saint, Brother Klaus, a hermit who is considered to be the first to advocate that Switzerland avoid foreign entanglements and remain peaceful people.
The sun broke through for a couple of hours in the afternoon, allowing us to make a quick gondola trip partway up Mount Pilatus to admire the views and the craggy peaks above.
Loren and Monica departed for home while Scott and I ventured
on to Zurich for our last two days. We
had planned more ambitious wanderings, but ran out of energy for that. We found much to like about Switzerland’s
largest city, an hour away from Basel by train.
The National Museum is housed in a castle across the street from the
central train station. There we
found many exhibits of interest, from archeology to recreated interiors of carved wood and massive ceramic heaters.
We made a quick stop in a police station
located in an old building with gorgeous painted ceilings.
Another quick stop got us the covid tests (negative, thankfully) required for flying back to the US.
We
enjoyed a longer time in the art museum where we found paintings by Swiss
artists, such as Ferninand Hodler, as well as some by Gaugin, Manet, Monet, Van Gogh, and others. I'm sharing one of my favorite Hodler paintings, "Holy Hour," here.
Unfortunately, the good feelings we had developed during our
four days in Switzerland were somewhat undone by the trauma of getting home. Our two scheduled British Airways flights
turned into four and finally three—on Iberia, American, and Delta--when British Airways suddenly
cancelled our flight out of Zurich. We
spent nearly three hours negotiating with various airline representatives to
figure out a way to get us home. We did
eventually make it but our luggage did not.
We do hope to return to this beautiful small country someday,
to explore more of its cities and mountains, perhaps in a different season and when
covid is under better control.
Speaking of covid, Switzerland required its own Covid
Certificate in order to enter restaurants, museums, and other public
places.
It cost about thirty dollars,
required proof of full vaccination, recovery from covid, or negative covid
testing within 72 hours.
We were issued
QR codes which we had to present on our cell phones everywhere.
There were many pop-up covid testing sites in
each town we visited with lines outside most.
We asked someone about them and were told that young people who “want to
go clubbing” have to get frequent testing to keep their QR codes active.
We asked ourselves, why don’t they just get
vaccinated?
Numbers in Europe are
climbing and governments are increasing the restrictions, but people still
gather, don’t mask unless required to do so (like on trains) and seem not to be
concerned.
We wore our masks even when we were the only ones doing so, tried
our best to maintain a safe distance (not always possible), and celebrated each
negative test result we received. We are
very glad to be back home where we have more control of our comings and goings.
It was a good trip, but it is always good to be back
home. Until the next trip, that is.
