Swiss trams - cheap(ish), frequent and convenient - but keep lots of change for the ticket machines (with instructions only in German).
Home > Basel
For my 39th birthday, Michelle booked us a few days in Basel in Switzerland. We flew Easyjet from Liverpool Airport for around £35 (return) each, and stayed at a b&b in Bottmingen, a suburb to the south of Basel.
Basel is in the north of the country, close to "Three Countries Corner" (where Switzerland, France and Germany meet). The city is predominantly German-speaking (the French know it as Bâle); we found it quite expensive and a bit, well, Swiss...but it was a great break all the same.
We arrived late morning on Wednesday - our first task was to work out how to get into town from the airport - the ticket machines take only coins and all we had were 100-Swiss-franc notes (worth about £45 each). Fortunately the bus driver had change. We worked out later we could probably have bought a zone ticket that would have covered us for the tram out to Bottmingen as well.
Swiss trams - cheap(ish), frequent and convenient - but keep lots of change
for the ticket machines (with instructions only in German).
Some impressions of Basel.
Seven Swiss swans a-swimming (the Rhine is fast-flowing and clean-looking despite
its size).
This is the Schloss in Bottmingen - a confection of a building housing a posh
restaurant.
On the Thursday we took a walk in the wooded hills to the south of Basel (walking
from the tram stop at Ettingen to Rodersdorf, the end of the line). Lunch -
so expensive we took a picture of it - was in a Gasthaus near the pretty village
of Burg, right next to the French border. In fact about a mile of our walk turned
out to be in France...
In this picture my right leg is in France and my left is in Switzerland. Fortunately
- as we didn't have our passports with us - border control amounted to a road
sign with a warning about customs limits.
Two inhabitants (one captive, one not) of Basel Zoo. We also visited the Tutankhamen
exhibition while we were in Basel (that's what the flags are for on the bridge
in the picture above) but no cameras were allowed...