A Few Days in Switzerland

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.