September 8, 2011-Return to Zurich (Thursday)

On Thursday we returned by train to Zurich.  Basel was lots of fun but now it was time to start focusing on the wedding!

We checked out of the Basel Hilton and caught one of the morning trains to Zurich.  The trains in Europe are so easy and convenient that we had no problems.  There was an intercity train between Basel and Zurich every 1/2 hour that made the trip in about 45 minutes!  Switzerland is not a vast country, but if we had caught a different train it would have taken much longer ... you have to make sure you are getting on an IC or ICE train that doesn't stop in every little town along the way.  One other thing we've learned is that, for day trips at least, 2nd class tickets are just fine.  We were very comfortable and had plenty of space for ourselves and our belongings.

We arrived in Zurich much earlier than the time we had discussed with Audrey so we had time for a light snack at a cafe in the train station, then wandered around the shops until it was time to meet Fred and Audrey.  After depositing our luggage in their car, we went to get lunch for Audrey at the very busy train station, and I sampled a rhubarb pie.  Fred and I had ordered the same thing ... a chocolate cake, but when it arrived it was an apple rhubarb pie.  Since it took so long to get served, we decided to go ahead and eat it, and it was very good.

Then we were off to the Swiss National Museum, or "Landesmuseum Zurich".  The museum opened in 1897 and is a very good cultural museum.  We learned quite a bit about the history of Switzerland from pre-historic times through today ... even though the exhibits were not in English.  They also had a nice collection of historical clothing and furniture.  The ceramic stoves really caught our attention.  The tiles on these stoves were beautiful.  Unfortunately, photographs were not allowed.  We had to leave the museum to catch a train in order to get to the rental car agency before it closed.  Fred and Ruth have been very gracious and generous hosts... showing us all around their homeland and refusing to allow us to pay for anything.

We returned to Wollerau in time for Audrey and Robert to head to the Zurich airport to pick up Audrey's good 'Texas' friend, Lauren.  Then we finished the day with a relaxing evening around another one of Ruth's delicious meals.  Her kitchen is small but she produces amazing meals in it!

September 7, 2011-Augusta Raurica to Basel (Wednesday afternoon)

We had a late lunch at the Bahnhof Restaurant, practicing our German with the friendly waitress.  This was really the first time we had needed our German translation book during the entire trip, and it was very helpful.  In Basel I had discovered a local specialty that I really liked, and thought I spotted it on the menu here so I tried it again.  Kalbesbratwurst an Zwiebelsauce Mit Rosti ... Grilled veal sausage with onion sauce/gravy and hash brown potatoes.  It was very good both times!

We returned by train to Basel, and I decided to challenge James' assertion that we had walked every street in the old part of Basel.  We jumped on a tram and started watching for new sights.

We found several sites we had missed, including the mechanical moving fountain I had seen on a post card.  Switzerland has lots of fountains, and you can always drink from them unless they have a warning sign telling you otherwise. Such a sign was on the Tinguely Fountain, a mechanical fountain outside the Tinguely Museum.  We had to spend some time watching the various mechanisms work.  Quite whimsical!

After the fountain we found "Elisabethankirchen", built in the "Neo-Gothic" style and beautifully preserved.  This church was completed in 1864 and was the first Protestant church built in Basel.

Lastly, we found the Basel Munster.  Definitely not to be missed.  Built out of red sandstone with beautiful tiled roofs on one of the earliest occupied sites in Basel, it has a commanding view of the city and is a spectacular sight.  Wandering around and reading the old tombstones was humbling ... some were as old as the 1400's.  A service was going on so we didn't enter the sanctuary but the Romanesque style exterior and the "porch" overlooking the city and the Rhein were very impressive.  Notice the sundial clocks on the tower!

We wandered a bit more, then settled at a sidewalk cafe to people watch.  We found a nice place with a helpful waiter on Barfusserplatz at Zum braunen Mutz, who suggested several different beers that James sampled.  To go with the beers, we tried a regional cheese tray ... very good.

Then it was back to the hotel for the night.  Another great day!

September 7, 2011-Augusta Raurica (Wednesday morning)

Today was our first completely solo day ... And we had great fun maneuvering on our own.

We rode the train from Basel to Augusta Raurica to see the ruins of an old Roman city.  The town was only a few kilometers up the Rhein from central Basel.  You might even say we were in the Basel suburbs.  At one time, Augusta Raurica was home to more than 10,000 people and is the oldest known Roman settlement on the Rhein.  Some buildings have been excavated and/or restored, but are scattered over quite a distance throughout the current city, as you can see from this map.

Fewer people speak English away from the large tourist areas, so we ended up taking the long way and got a bit lost trying to find the museum, but looking around the town was fun too.  We actually found the ruins of a bath first, then followed some little signs to a Roman column in a garden and a few other things.  James eventually found a post office with an outdoor map of the city and figured out where the museum was located.  The city had lots of signs up, pointing the way to the museum ... we just missed them.

The museum had an interesting collection from a silver trove.  When the fortune was first uncovered, it's significance was not recognized and many pieces were collected by locals or thrown away!  The valuables had been buried by their owners when they feared, correctly as it tuns out, that the town was about to be invaded.

There was also a replica of a traditional Roman home, with explanations in multiple languages ... luckily for us English was one of those languages!  Most of the signs on the archaeological sites were in German and French only ...

 

The theater had a modern sound system installed and looked like it had been used for an event recently.  They even have a web cam!

Across from the theatre were the remains of Temple on Schonbuhl. We had seen what was probably the key to the temple door in the museum earlier.  This Roman temple to Jupiter was built over an even older Celtic temple ...

We then embarked on a trek to see even more.  Pretty soon we came across the ruins of the town's Amphitheatre.  These ruins had been hidden on the top of a hill by forest ... and were even missed when anti-tank fortifications were built during World War II.

 

 Next on the switch backed trail was the Sanctuary on Grienmatt.  We had to leave the trail and walk through a pasture to get to these ruins.  Experts are not sure who this structure was devoted to ... statues of more than one deity have been found here.  Some think it may have been a water temple, since the remains of a spa have been uncovered at the site.

 The trail took us back to the museum, just as 2 tour buses full of tourists pulled up. We ducked into the area next to the museum and looked at the collection of Roman grave markers.  It is amazing to think of the lives these people lived. It makes me realize how short life is in the scheme of things.  These people have been dead for thousands of years ...

This is an anti-tank barrier left over from World War II.  You can still see lines of these throughout Switzerland today.  The Swiss knew that Hitler planned to return and conquer them, despite their neutrality, once he had taken England.  He had called Switzerland a "prickly hedgehog" and chose to sidestep the country temporarily, knowing it would be difficult to conquer with it's mountainous terrain.

Near the museum again, we saw the remains of a small workshop.  The next site of interest was the location of the main Forum.  A temple to Jupiter, a basilica and the Curia remains are also nearby.  It was interesting to see how the people of the town re-used the older Roman buildings and ruins over the years.  The fountain below has been modernized and much of the detailed stonework has been moved to different locations and reused. 

 

 

            

There was a collection of ancient ceramic tile panels, found in Roman homes throughout the area, available for viewing in the basement of the Curia.  This area also contained tables set up for classes and meetings.  The Curia was used during the middle ages as the local city hall.

              

The remains of a well house and bath house were also interesting.  The photographs I took in the well house didn't turn out ... you could look up the well shaft to see the sky!

 

How the locals lost and re-found some of the ruins was interesting.  It was a bit frustrating to see that so much of the original building material was gone, having been repeatedly reused for newer construction over the centuries.  Some blocks of stone have even been crushed for use as gravel.  Many of the ruins we saw had actually been reconstructed using new stones and modern mortar.

September 6, 2011-More of Basel (Tuesday)

After all the walking on Monday, we decided to start the day with a hearty breakfast buffet at the place we had found on Sunday with Jens and Christina, Moevenpick.  The fruhstuck was wonderful again and we wanted to start the girls off with a good meal before they hit the road.

The trains in Europe are great but Brechtje had a long day of travel to get back to her home in The Netherlands and Maria had a few hours on the train as well.  The main Bahnhof in Basel is very large so after breakfast we headed to the station to make sure the girls got off okay.  Brechtje had gotten confused the day she arrived in Basel as had James and I when we arrived, but we didn't have too much trouble figuring things out this time.  Maria was off first, then Brechtje.  It was hard to say goodbye to them but we will see them again the next time we travel to Europe.  Now that we've done this once, we are more than ready to do it many more times.

 

After seeing the girls off, James and I went to the "Barfusserkirchen" (Church of the barefoot friars), part of the Historical Museum of Basel.  This was the museum we had tried to get into the previous two days and was now, finally open.  They had a very good exhibit with lots of information about the history of Basel, so we spent several hours there.  We learned all about the Basilisk ... so now I understand Harry Potter's story better!  The museum had some very nice Pre-Reformation relics, altar pieces and tapestries, including several items from the Basel Cathedral Treasury.  We learned that much of Basel was destroyed in a massive earthquake in 1356, so much of what we see today has been either massively repaired or was built after the earthquake.

At one point while we were enjoying the view of the Rhein, a large freight ship came barrelling around the bend upstream of this bridge and then passed right under the center span.  There couldn't have been more than two or three feet of clearance between the ship and the pylons.  The ship had a very peculiar bridge structure in order to be able to get under the span.  We were impressed by the obvious skill of the pilot in guiding that very large ship through that not so big hole.

We finished the day by crossing the Rhein on the Mittlere Brücke bridge, opened in 1226, but rebuilt many times so only the tower in the middle is original.  For many centuries this was the only bridge across the Rhein in this region.  We seem to spend much of our time going back and forth across this bridge.

After another nice dinner at "Restaurant Zum Alten Warteck" of Kalbesbratwurst an Zwiebelsauce Mit Rosti for me and Cordon Bleu for James, we returned to the Hilton and called it a day.

September 5, 2011-Exploring Basel With Maria and Brechtje (Monday)

We spent a fun day exploring Basel with Maria and Brechtje today ... Lots of shopping and more eating!

Some of the shops were open today, so after a light breakfast of rolls and coffee at a little cafe upstairs from a bakery on Gerbergasse, we started looking for the stores we had seen as we window shopped on Sunday.  As we wandered up and down every street in the old town, we continually found  many interesting buildings and alleyways ... then right in the middle of all the quaint old shops, we found GameStop!





Another old church ... this one had a meditation maze next to it that Maria and Brechtje had to try.  As James and I sat on a wall to watch, I noticed the very old slate roofs below.







 

I love all the greenery!

The train shop and the art shops were still closed but we managed to find a few places to spend our money.  James found a couple of Aaron Copeland CDs to add to Fred and Ruth's music collection at "Bider and Tanner". 

There were lots of street musicians to listen to as we strolled along the streets ... some were quite good but others, not so much.  Perhaps the street musicians in Basel take the place of our homeless people with their signs at street intersections back in Texas ...

 

We found a great beirgarten on a side street north of the Rhein and enjoyed a break there so much that we decided we needed to return later for dinner.  It had the feel of a place frequented by locals ... not at all touristy.  The waiter recognized us as Americans because we tried to use a credit card ... which they didn't accept.  It can't be a tourist place if they don't take credit cards!

After the break we decided to make our own city tour and got on various buses and trams, hopping on and off to get a closer look at the streets and buildings.  Basel is full of museums but the one we really wanted to visit was still closed so we had to go back to shopping.  After some shopping for clothes, we enjoyed another break at a tea shop above that of a famous chocolatier, Confiserie-Schiesser.  This was the first patisserie on Marktplatz and has been open since 1870.  The tea shop is on the first floor (in Europe the 1st floor is what we call the 2nd floor).  Maria and Brechtje treated us to some yummy chocolate desserts. 

I think I like this lifestyle ... stroll a while, eat a while, repeat!

The four of us managed to shop until it was dinner time, then returned to the beirgarten for sausages and potato salad.  The restaurant was a peaceful, laid back place where most of the people seemed to know each other.  We spent several hours chatting about "the good old days" in Duncanville.

We eventually strolled back to the hotel and enjoyed a round of $20 per person drinks at the "City Bar" in the Hilton ... and were ready to call it a day once again.  Our time with the girls flew by way too fast!!!