Day 9: Back in Basel

Writing this post after having just returned from a 10-day excursion through some major European cities, I am exhausted! I realize now that the reason my parents' trip worked as well as it did was that we often returned home, either to spend a day there or just to sleep. This is why I loved day 9 in Basel, the last day before they flew home. My Dad is a powerhouse of energy who strangely does best on almost no sleep, so even though we were exhausted from our Matterhorn hike, he and I still woke up at 7:30 to walk around the neighborhood. We live barely outside Basel limits on the edge of a really fancy community, and if you just keep walking in a general uphill direction, you'll find yourself surrounded by enormous gated homes all looking out over a fantastic panorama of the city. Also, people apparently keep some sheep up there. We walked for about an hour and picked up some pastries for everyone at Migros on the way home. Being there that early, it was the best time for pastries! We got some kind of apricot/quark (ricotta-like cheese) lattice-top pastry, a twisty chocolate stick-shaped croissant thing, an apple turnover and a raspberry/vanilla danish.

Having my parents here gave me the push in the butt I needed to do some of the great things in Basel that I'd never done (though I've lived here almost a year). So after breakfast and some tea at the Elisabethenkirche (my favorite Basel cafe), we decided to float down the Rhein. I like the German spelling of Rhein much better than the English Rhine. Rhein is stronger, much more fitting for the type of river it is. Anyway, the water was cold as hell with a fierce current but once we got in it was really a good experience. 

The thing that's necessary to know about floating down the Rhein is, if you are doing it recreationally (not for a workout) and also don't want to ride the tram/walk through the city in your swimsuit, waterproof bags are a must. I don't mean Ziploc, here. They are a really specific thing, these brightly-colored kind of fish-shaped bags that you have to seek out and purchase. They are CHF 20 for a small or CHF 30 for a large, I think, and definitely meant to be reused, if that seems expensive. We got a large and fit all four people's stuff in it easily. The problem was just that, since the bags kind of double as a float that you can hold onto and thus not have to work as hard, I wished we had more than one. They are not actually flotation devices, but they really do work! My Mom held onto ours and managed to keep her whole upper back and hair dry. Meanwhile, I found it quite a struggle, actually, to tread water for that long without a break. I hit a stride eventually, and figured out better ways to work with the current. But I think it would be much more pleasant with a float. You can get in and out of the river almost anywhere--there are frequent stairs down to the bank and chains to pull yourself out. But if you miss the last getting out point (Dreirosenbrücke, I believe), you're stuck treading for a very long stretch (I think almost to Germany).

That evening, I thought it would be neat for my parents to see for themselves how close the border to France really is, so we did the Chateau du Landskron hike in Leymen with them even though Juna and I have already done it. We took a picnic of roast chicken, brie, Alp cheese and wine from Drinks of the World, and picked up some local cherries we saw for sale along the trail. Maybe it was a bit silly to carry all this stuff, but it was incredible to eat such a sumptuous meal at a bunch of castle ruins. We saved some wine to take with us up to the top and toasted just before sunset, surrounded by this breathtaking panorama of France, Germany and Switzerland. I think this hike, the last thing we did before my parents left, was actually one of the coolest things we did on the whole trip. And we didn't even have to take a train--the 10 tram that stops near our house goes there (See my other post about this hike here).