Around Basel
Basel has a few unique attractions near the city. Since we were in Basel for nine days, we tried to stop at these attractions also. At the very edge of the city, at the heart of the last port on the Rhine River, there is a place where you can stand in three European countries at once. Of course I had to visit! This place is only marked at the end of a pier by the country flags. We can now say we have stood in Switzerland, Germany and France at the same time.
Another day, we had agreed to take my work colleague to Zurich before her early morning Friday flight, so we stopped at another attraction after work on Thursday night. The work colleague had bought way too much luggage to carry herself and was nervous about the Swiss trains, so we had to drive her. I was surprised Jordan agreed to drive since he frowns upon too much luggage and not trusting the trains. The other main attraction was about eight miles outside of Basel. Augusta Raurica is a 2,000 old Roman settlement and is a tourist town set-up for this purpose only. The Swiss have spent a fortune excavating and restoring the town in the past fifty years. New archeological digs have recovered entire houses and many artifacts even as recent as early this century. The best preserved space is the Roman Amphitheater. It was the best ruins we have ever seen, since we have not yet made it to Rome. There were many other ruins we toured, including a huge bath area with underground wells and a house with an oven which was preserved from the Roman times due to a fire and bombings.
Basel is one of the towns that has been integral in the modern art movement and has a few museums devoted to this kind of art. We did not visit any of these museums and enjoyed venturing out to see other things that actually shaped or contributed to human society.
BLACK FOREST
On Friday, we crossed the border for the third time into Germany.
Fribourg
Drive
Titisee
Furtwangen-Cluckoo Clocks
Drive
Tried to see Baden-Baden but the A-5 was stopped for very bad accident
A-5 autobahn
Back to Basel
Wine Country in the Alsace
After our castle tour at the top of mountain, we ventured back down to the small village of Saint Hippolyte (Still laughing?). We had Euros to burn because the castle was free admission on this particular Saturday. As mentioned earlier, the town is one of the first stops on the Rue de Vino in the Alsace region. This area has vineyards everywhere you look.
The village had many signs, but only for wineries and hotels This is the only source of income for this area. I feel they make a lot of money doing these two things. I know I could not have a proper wine tour of all the local vineyards or varieties, but I wanted to buy some bottles to take home to enjoy next year. I had quickly used TripAdvisor that morning to look up the area attractions, so I did not have my usual fool-proof plan on what location and vendor to buy things from in this town. We parked the car in the middle of town and just walked towards the signs. As we looked for an official wine store or a vineyard sales house, we realized that is not how this would work in this town. It is Europe, so it would have to be more interesting. You simply ask if the vendor speaks English, walk into a barn or side shop on their property, taste the wine by pointing at the list and buy anything you like. Each place would let you taste as many as you like from their wine list. We couldn’t truly enjoy this part of the buying on this day since I am pregnant and Jordan was driving. Once we realized there was not any shops, we stopped at the second house we saw because it had two friendly dogs to greet patrons. She spoke excellent English and was very friendly. She quickly explained how informal it was to buy and we went about purchasing our first couple of bottles. We went to two more French farmhouses after this one. We bought five bottles during our three stops, including four different types of wine. We decided if we can return to Basel we will do a wine tour in Hippolyte for a day and try to enjoy all the varieties this region offers.
We drove off from Saint Hippolyte back to the highway and ventured to one more French stop-Mulhouse.
Mulhouse-Car Museum
The largest car museum in Europe is located in Mulhouse, France. Mulhouse is the industrial area of the Alsace region. Mulhouse does not really have anything to offer for tourist except a train museum and the car museum. The car museum focuses on the Bugatti car line.
Overview of Trip
I am very glad to have to had the opportunity to go to training for work in Switzerland. I am hopeful this is not the last time I will be asked to visit Basel for my job. I truly enjoyed the city of Basel and this trip confirmed I really like Switzerland. I like Switzerland not only for its beauty and quiet charm, but for its cleanliness and politeness. The Swiss would not make any tourist or citizen go out of their way or not be able to find something to please them. Even in the remote locations. It is amazing.
This was the first time we have truly done daytrips and stayed at one “home base” during our European adventures. We stayed in Basel for eight nights straight in a small apartment. It was great to not have to pack our bags up every two or three nights. However, if we came back we would need to venture out further into other countries since we almost exhausted the list of day trips from Basel and most Swiss locations.
We have decided the trains are easier overall to use for travel, but in certain parts of Europe it is not practical to rely on trains. Many of the things we saw this trip were not accessible by train, so it was nice to have a car. Also, the car made it easy to go to the next sightseeing place at your pace or just stop and visit anything of interest. Our smartest decision was to upgrade to get the GPS because we would have been lost so many times without it! Parking in the city was easy near our apartment, but it was expensive to park and get gas.
We have been so blessed to go on six international trips (and countless domestic trips) in our 5 ½ years of marriage. Overall it was a great fourth European trip! Our Fourth trip took us to four countries…not too bad for a 6 ½ month pregnant person! That is our best record yet—even I usually stop after three countries.
We have a funny feeling our biggest adventure is yet to start. Here’s to 2014 and our new adventurer! --Lauren
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