Basel

 10/12/2025

When we wake in Basel, we discover we are raftered up against two other Viking river ships on the outside requiring us to pass through them to get ashore. Our luggage had to be out by 7 am for collection and we disembark at 9 am, for a morning tour of Basel, before travelling on to Zurich this afternoon.



Rafted up with 2 other boats

The disembarkation was smooth, from a passenger viewpoint, the luggage not so smooth as we discovered later. Our buses left roughly on time to take us into Basel for a morning tour and we plan to then drive to Zurich arriving at around 3 pm.

The major industries are Life Sciences, Pharmaceuticals and Bio Science and financial services. International Pharmaceutical giants, Roche and Novartis are headquartered here. Both pharmaceutical companies have around 10,000 employees in Basel.

Basel SBB Railway Station 

The Childrens Hospital has an interesting facade that changes colour as you drive past it

There is some interesting modern architecture in Basel and it all seems to be the work of a few architects. The Congress  Centre is nicknamed “The Cheesegrater” because of the design of its roof.


Basel Congress Centre



Roche Tower


The upmarket St Paul residential area


Our bus drops us in town and our walking tour begins. Firstly et are told about the myriad of drinking fountains that exist all over Basel, all providing potable spring water suitable for drinking and filling water bottles. They are all different designs and very ornate, like the one below.


A lot of school children are noticed on the streets and our guide explains that it Basel parents are not allowed to drive their children to school. All school children walk to school.


Basel Munster (Cathedral)


There is a large Christmas tree in the square in front of the cathedral 


The cloisters
Set high on a hill overlooking the city, the view from the Cathedral square terrace gives a great view of the city.


Roche tower in the background


A cross river ferry that runs across the river connected to an above water cable using the flow of the river to move it backwards and forwards across the river




As Switzerland s a land locked country, much of its freight comes up the Rhine River, and Basel is its major river port.

Next we find our way down the hill to the very colourful Basel Rathaus, the Town Hall. Both the external facade and internal courtyard are colourfully decorated.


The Rathaus with the farmers market out the front.


Internal courtyard 


Now we are going back through the backstreets to be left with some free time at one of the many Christmas markets.




Toy Museum 



Cheese shops are everywhere 


The old pub with blue shutters is where we had lunch


The Christmas Market is in sight ( they are nearly always near a church)

The markets here had a different food focus, with fondue, raclette and anything to do with cheese of Chocolate somehow incorporated into the food options. The stands were also more elaborate and because we are in Switzerland, everything is very expensive.


This stall/ restaurant had animated moose heads mounted above the door, that “sang” songs and “talked”

 




Here is an example how you can overdo the cheese




This stall was a bakery


A bit more innovative roof art on this stall 

On this occasion we had more free time than we really needed and having visited a few Christmas markets, began to find our way back to the pick up point where we would get back on the bus to go to Zurich. We were way too early so wandered across the road to discover a very innovative fountain, containing various mechanical contraptions that discharged water in many different ways


Tinguely Fountain



An hour after leaving Basel we arrived at our Hotel in Zurich, the Renaissance Hotel ( part of Marriot group). Getting access to our rooms was relatively smooth, but the luggage took 2.5 hours to get to our room.

A short walking tour of the area was organised by Viking to show us the local shopping and restaurant options, and more importantly, how to buy a tram ticket. You would think this would be very straightforward and it is if you want to by a single ticket, but if you want to buy multiple tickets you have to choose between an icon for a dog or a bicycle. You guessed it, we had to pick the dog icon, because as well as allowing you to buy multiple tickets, if you bring your dog, you have to pay as well unless you carry it.

We dined at one of the local restaurants, an Imitation English Pub with some American friends for dinner. It is hard to see the value in a $50 hamburger, but we are in Switzerland.

Tomorrow we have a morning lake and walking tour of Zurich.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sightseeing in Singapore and fly to Barcelona

Image
 12/11/2025 and 13/11/25 Our flight doesn't depart for Barcelona until 11.45 pm today, so we have a day to fill in at a leisurely pace. It is a little overcast today and a comfortable mid 20's temperature forecast, although as usual, there is high humidity.  Morning view from our room First we need to have breakfast and there are lots of options, other than the usual hotel buffet. We wandered around the shopping centre across the road and the hawker centre, but in the end opted to take a short walk up to East Coast Road, to a French Cafe franchise, Merci Marcel. It turned out to be a good choice, as it was nicely air conditioned and the food was very good, including the coffee ! Breakfast at Merci Marcel There is no real plan for what we will do for the rest of the day, so we head back to the hotel to look at options. Luckily, there is a new MRT station across the road from the hotel, so the only certain part of the plan, is that we will take a train somewhere. In the end, we ...
Read more

On Our Way

Image
 11/11/2025 It has been a long day, but at least we have been spared from Albo's rewriting of history speeches about his old mate Gough. I thought today was Remembrance Day. Off to not a great start, the traffic this morning to the airport was horrendous. Fortunately, we had plenty of time up our sleeve, it just meant spending less time waiting in the terminal. Check in with Singapore Airlines, Premium Economy was a breeze and we didn't experience much of a delay going through immigration.  The flight left the terminal on time, but then sat in a queue waiting to take off for 30 mins. The plane is very comfortable and the Premium Economy layout on the Airbus 380, offers plenty of legroom and comfortable seats. Once in the air, we were told that flying conditions were very good and we could expect to arrive in Singapore at 5.45 PM. Food and service were also very good, there were a few bumpy patches during te flight, but what we were unaware of was that a big storm was passing t...
Read more

Civitavecchia, Rome

Image
 16/11/2025 Another mild day is ahead of us as we dock at Civitavecchia, the Port of Rome. It is quite a distance to the city of Rome from here, so day tours start early and run for about 8 hours. Our tour leaves at 8 .20 am, and is one of many, Fortunately, there do not appear to be a lot of cruise boats in port when we arrive. The bus trip to the city takes around 1 hour, and once there we have about 1.5 hours of sightseeing in the bus before disembarking in the middle of the City for 4 hours of free time.  Our tour bus tour takes us past a few of the outer lying attractions including the Colosseum, old city walls etc, much of which was not able to be photographed from a moving bus, especially if the attraction was on the other side of the bus. Baths of Caracalla Fortunately we did get a clear shot of Circus Maximus, still the largest stadium in the World, capable of accomodating 250,000 people. Sadly there are no chariot races, gladiatorial games or public executions in mod...
Read more