Distance. 65km
Total. 365km
What a shock to the system....we didn’t have a Frühstück prepared for us. I had to go our foraging to a local backerei for croissants, German ones seem to be larger and less flaky than French croissants! The calorie count was way down on recent days. I did manage to prove one thing....you don’t need to go on a boat ride to have a ‘Früstückfahrt’!
One thing we did before setting off was to cancel the accommodation we had booked for Tuesday night. We regularly us Booking.com and had found a nice looking apartment but after booking and paying we got a message saying there is a 10 Euro charge extra for bed linen and no towels were provided. It would have been better if this information was available prior to the booking. The toys came out of the pram and (by email) demanded a cancellation and full refund, which (after a series of emails) we have got.
Our plan was to ride to Basel, have a good look around and then cycle up to Bamlach where (if you have been paying attention to the blog) you will know we had left the motorhome in storage on a site.
The weather is still seriously hot and was sunny from the outset. Without stopping we cycled to Basel in time for a, slightly late, morning coffee. It was our last stop in Switzerland and we clenched our teeth whilst we paid nearly £4 each for two coffees. We have generally felt that Switzerland is more expensive than Germany and a couple of times we have bought something, paid cash in Euros, and been stung with a 1 Euro = 1 Swiss Franc exchange rate. The Swiss know how to do a deal! We have noticed other differences that are regularly commented upon by travellers to this area.....it’s neat and tidy, trains and railways lines look tidy and.....we noticed that more often than not electric railway lines were not fenced off. In Britain our attitude to Health and Safety seems far stricter to the point where (sadly) no-one has any personal responsibility anymore.
Moving on....Basel was pretty busy. Many of its museums were closed on a Monday, not that it bothered us. We saw what we wanted to see, especially the Münster and the Rathaus.
Basel was a city of power for many years as for centuries it was the only bridge across the Rhein before Konstanz. Hard to believe but maybe all the various wars made bridge building pointless, or short lived.
The little boat shown in the photo crosses the Rhein without power, it is connected to an overhead cable and it travels across by angling itself against the current and is a passenger only ferry for a reasonable price. Also, if you look closely at the little dots near the boat. These are people who fasten their belonging up in a dry bag and float downstream in the river, some people actually swim across like this but they end up a long way down stream. Health and Safety, personal responsibility? I can’t imagine it being commonplace in the UK, some authority would have to stop it!
Despite the heat we cycled to the the Caravan Site where our van is. It was the reverse of our first days cycling. By the time we arrived we were steaming. We got the van into position and quickly bought a bier from the site shop.....it did taste wonderful. Quick showers, beard trim, clothes washing and little bike maintenance then.....
An action photo of Janice.
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