Day 4 Into the Black Forest for Lunch

 Staying with friends in Basel is fun, especially when they suggest their favourite restaurant for lunch. ‘Have you got your passports?’ they ask and then it is off to Germany to the Black Forest for lunch. And to be honest lunch takes up most of the day!

Of course the menu is all in German so we take advice from our friends. Wendy orders a meal, which basically includes fish, and Richard braves the local seasonal delicacy, venison. Our friends warn us not to order starters as we are in for a few surprises. Firstly, the bread is almost perfect, and is followed by a bowl of piping hot Cream of Vegetable soup which must be bad for you because it tastes so good. Then a fresh crisp salad arrives accompanied by a dressing that looks like mayonnaise but is so much lighter and more dreamy. Then the main course arrives and Wendy’s meal includes about four different varieties of fish. Richard’s venison is rich, and accompanied by a wonderful mushroom sauce. As is our normal practice we swap meals half way through, but the venison meal is so large that we have to take some home in a doggy bag. That leaves just enough room for dessert which is again is sublime, with Wendy eating French vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce and Richard a Tartufo. Of course we again swap. It is the sort of meal that dominates a day.

Our drive home winding through the Black Forrest includes a slight traffic jam as we pass through one of Germany’s most popular ski resorts. At the highest point of our journey we actually emerge above the cloud and the most perfect blue sky appears, but only for about 15 minutes.

Our host has one more treat in store for us and insists that we stop at the tourist village of Titersee. A walk by a frozen lake is followed by a stroll though the markets, which stock amongst other things famous German, smoked ham. Finally we are compelled to do, what must be done in the Black Forest, eat black forest cake. Surprisingly it is much lighter than we expected but hardly low in calories.

Arriving home we sat down for dinner, which was just a cup of tea and was frankly was more than we really needed. 

Day 3 Transport and towers

 Basel is a city of about 300,000 people on the Swiss side of the borders of France and Germany. It is an old trading city located on the majestic Rhine River. Like many European cities it has a quaint medieval Old Town, a bustling business district and a city skyline that is dominated by shingled roofs rather than steel and glass. In spite of the grey skies the city revealed to us the ancient glory of a town originally founded by the Romans mixed with a modern 
cosmopolitan city that has something we don’t seem to be able to achieve in Australia, an effective and efficient public transport network of buses and trams. A simple electronic sign in a bus indicating name of the next stop, a ticketing system that allows you to combine a bus and tram journey in one direction and a ticketing system for locals that includes reasonably priced yearly tickets makes public transport attractive 

and effective. Huge barges carry containers, produce, oil and lumber up and down the wide and fast flowing river as they have no doubt done for hundreds of years. In the midst of modern public transport system is a mode of transport that has not changed for several hundred years; a ferry, called a Fähri, transports passengers across the river, powered only by the river itself. The fast flowing tide allows the boat, which is attached to a cable, to sail across the river. What is really impressive about the city of Basel, is that it has created a transport system that works - something we can only hope that Australian politicians might consider and adopt.

Speaking of transport, climbing the bell tower at the Basel Munster became the highlight of a wonderful day. 220 tiny, steel, wooden and stone spiral steps, which at times were covered in ice, in a stairwell that was so tiny that you literally had to scrape your way through, allowed us to climb up the bell tower to the huge bell, and then to continue up into the spire of this beautiful red sandstone cathedral. The view was of course spectacular but the idea that for over 700 years people have used only their legs to climb these steps to view this city, was awesome. 

Basel is a city of about 300,000 people on the Swiss side of the borders of France and Germany. It is an old trading city located on the majestic Rhine River. Like many European cities it has a quaint medieval Old Town, a bustling business district and a city skyline that is dominated by shingled roofs rather than steel and glass. In spite of the grey skies the city revealed to us the ancient glory of a town originally founded by the Romans mixed with a modern cosmopolitan city that has something we don’t seem to be able to achieve in Australia, an effective and efficient public transport network of buses and trams. A simple electronic sign in a bus indicating name of the next stop, a ticketing system that allows you to combine a bus and tram journey in one direction and a ticketing system for locals that includes reasonably priced yearly tickets makes public transport attractive and effective. Huge barges carry containers, produce, oil and lumber up and down the wide and fast flowing river as they have no doubt done for hundreds of years. In the midst of modern public transport system is a mode of transport that has not changed for several hundred years; a ferry, called a Fähri, transports passengers across the river, powered only by the river itself. The fast flowing tide allows the boat, which is attached to a cable, to sail across the river. What is really impressive about the city of Basel, is that it has created a transport system that works - something we can only hope that Australian politicians might consider and adopt.

Speaking of transport, climbing the bell tower at the Basel Munster became the highlight of a wonderful day. 220 tiny, steel, wooden and stone spiral steps, which at times were covered in ice, in a stairwell that was so tiny that you literally had to scrape your way through, allowed us to climb up the bell tower to the huge bell, and then to continue up into the spire of this beautiful red sandstone cathedral. The view was of course spectacular but the idea that for over 700 years people have used only their legs to climb these steps to view this city, was awesome.

In the evening we dined with our hosts and their pastor and his wife who live 20 minutes away from their church in Basel, across the border in Germany.  Pastoring an Anglican, English-speaking church in Basel, when you live in Germany is unusual,  but even this is not beyond the public transport system as the Basel transport network spreads out its efficient reach to the near by towns in both Germany and France, encouraging daily commuters from other countries. Amazing!  

Day 1 Real Christmas Trees

 Taking the Christmas decorations off our pine Christmas tree on Boxing Day seemed like a very harsh thing to do.Traditionally our tree stays up at least until the New Year or at best until the 6^th January but this year Wendy took down the decorations and Richard sawed the tree up for firewood early, in preparation for our Cold Play adventure to begin on December 27^th. We left Sydney at on time at 6.50pm and flew to Zurich via Singapore , the second leg, which was on an A-380 was rather pleasant.

We arrived in Zurich around 7.30 am and quickly and easily found our way through customs and across the road to the railway station on route to visit some friends who live in Basel. After a short delay buying a ticket we ran to the platform to catch the 8.04 train to Basel which amazingly was running a couple of minutes late (Swiss trains are never late) allowing us to be the last passengers on board before the doors closed. Of course somewhere in that process we retrieved our coats and beanies from our bags, as the temperature on arrival was a cool -5 degrees.

What followed was a 90-minute train ride through an absolute winter wonderland. After leaving Sydney with its green pine Christmas trees in pots, or worse green plastic pine trees in pots, or even worse still green plastic pine trees in pots with fake white snow painted on the branches, we were greeted on our journey from Zurich to Basel with majestic pine trees and whole forests blanketed in white snow. To the locals the snow is an inconvenience, which makes transport and getting around a little difficult. For us as visitors we could only see the beauty in the snow-covered trees, houses, cars, roads and footpaths.

Our first day was not wasted as we spent time catching up with our friends, Roger and Elizabeth with whom we enjoyed lunch in a cafeteria, where you are charged for you meal by the weight of your plate, followed by a wonderful mid afternoon walk in the snow through one of Basel’s most beautiful parks while the snow continued to fall all around us. In spite of the dark falling at about 4.30pm, we caught a bus to town and began to check out the sights of Basel before returning for a cheese fondue for dinner (so wonderfully Swiss).