Last few days in Basel

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

Reset: France

The third country we visited this trip was France.  France is simply to the west of Basel and cute farming towns start just ten miles outside of Basel.  This region is called Alsace.  It is (very!) famous for wines and includes a famous wine tour of small towns.  The full tour did not seem like the right kind of day trip for us, right now, so Wednesday after work we headed to region's capital Strasbourg for a brief visit.

Strasbourg is about an hour and half away from Basel and is the next large European city in the immediate area.   As usual this trip, we hit construction and  a lot of traffic so it took us until 8pm to get to the city.  That was ok, since work didn't start the following day until 9:30am for training.  (See I told you these hours are good!) We easily parked at La Petite France at the edge of the city.  It was quite large for such a quaint area.

See, isn't it pretty!?  From there we tried to find a French restaurant or at least a particular Irish bar we'de heard about, but this was the touristy area.  We tried to walk, but without a good map it was very hard.  Then it started to pour sideways rain.  We were soaked to the bone and our shoes were pouring out water.  Yet being me, I continued to try to find my tourist attractions.  French towns are terrible when it comes to making sense with streets, so I failed to find much of anything.  I did walk around the area where Gutenberg invented the printing press and saw the town hall, opera, theater, and some other pretty buildings but again I couldn't see well out of my rain hood.  Finally we could see the top of the cathedral so we did go there.  It has the largest astronomical clock in Europe and the old building is very large, even for France.

This region's most famous food is some kind of a flatbread with a odd cream, onions, and bacon.  People love it.  I tried this "pizza."  At least the view of the Cathedral was amazing from my seat at the restaurant.  In the future, I'll stick to French wines.

Then we trekked back to the car finally, even after the 1/3 mile bridge was closed due to the late hour and we had to walk 1/2 a mile back to the car the completely other way in the pouring rain.  The one thing I really wanted to see in this city was the European Union home offices, which weren't open to the public, but I mean I love me some government buildings.  We never found it.  I figured my European luck had ONCE AGAIN run out in France.  

RESET: On Saturday when we awoke, even Jordan agreed we should try to see France again.  We figured if we were as miserable as Wednesday we would get back in the car and race back to the comforts of Switzerland.  It was supposed to rain all day, but luckily it held off in France.  We muddled over 15 miles to eat in a little farming town and I found a French bakery, which is always a good start.  Then we drove 15 more miles to a cute town called Colmar.  Colmar's claim to fame is being a cute walled city with La Petite Venice (see a theme!?) and the home to one of the best sculptors-Frederic Auguste Bartholdi.  This town had statues everywhere.  

The coolest thing was we ventured right outside of the city for this surprise:

A small replica of the Statue of Liberty was a gift to the city 100 years after the death of the sculptor by the first lady of France.  We made sure to get my picture to ensure our future child had a picture of something American in his room.

After this good time, we decided to get really adventurous and drive up a mountain to a castle.  This mountain is right outside of the start of the famous Rue de Vins road tour and the town is called Saint Hippolyte!  (laughed didn't you?)  The castle was a Roman settlement first and has been used even up to WWII where the Germans and then Allies used it as a base since it was very safe.  This castle was the best we have visited yet because you could see very easily how this functioned as a town.

More castle pictures later, since our camera died and we had to use an IPhone.  From here we ventured back down to Saint Hippolyte and Mulhouse.  We will blog about these later because each are a story onto themselves!

And we haven't even blogged about Germany yet!!!

--Lauren

Guess Where We Were Yesterday?!?

Around Town In Basel

Today; a short post about the city of Basel.  Basel is a city that touches, and even stretches into three countries.  It has the only airport in the world that is based in three countries and it's called EuroAirport.  The town is very Swiss, has a strong German influence, and most of the food is Italian. As you walk around you can't help but overhear many languages, but primarily German.   It is considered one of the most international cities in the world.  It has the international bank center and many global companies are based here.  However, somehow it maintains its Swiss charm while being quietly multi-national. 

Basel is famous for modern art and a red Marketplatz.  It is has also been a big stop on the Rhine river for businesses since Roman times.  

Two different nights this week, I enjoyed my favorite Swiss thing =Rosti.  Rosti is like really good hash-browns smothered in Swiss cheese.  I added bacon and a fried egg to mine.  The portions are large, but I ate all of my dish because it was so delicious.  The German waitress said "ah, see for two and pointed to my belly".  It was amusing (to others at least).  Sadly I am having to refrain from my other favorite Swiss thing - the local white wine Fendant - which is only produced in Switzerland.  It is only rarely exported, even to the EU.  I have tried to order it in the US, but no avail.  But I am bringing some home for next year!

We will end up staying eight nights in one tiny apartment.  It is like living in an IKEA showroom!  We have tried to live more like the locals by going to the grocery store, having a car, using the tram to get to work and walking around at night to then go linger over a long dinner.  Too bad I can’t drink like the locals (le' sigh).  It has taught us we could definitely live here if we could afford a TWO bedroom non-studio apartment in the city.  However, we would really miss real diet coke and definitely have to learn German.

Now someone help me to get a job transfer.

-Lauren

Working in the EU

The reason we are on this EU journey is work-related.  We are writing a few different kinds of blog posts since we are trying different things this trip, including one about working!  Next year my company will implement a new reporting system, so I am one of the first testers in module training.  I am very happy to have this opportunity and actually like this kind of thing.  So glad I changed jobs!

The Syngenta headquarters is on the edge of Basel and shares a large complex with Novartis & Ciba.  (Those companies are also in Greensboro.)  The Novartis buildings have cow statues and fun animals, but Syngenta has their (usual) pretty plants.  The cafeteria is good with many options and huge because over 1,000 people work in Basel for Syngenta.  (Below is Novartis Animal Health)

All of the timeswe have traveled around the EU, we have always wanted to see how they work.  We have gathered how they live, get groceries, attend school, etc. but it is hard to really get a feel for the workplace in Europe from a tourist perspective.

During my three days of training, I have learned a lot about the EU working environment.  The Europeans are more laid back about their jobs and very serious about their breaks.  They arrive no earlier than 8:30 and work for roughly 2-3 hours before having a 15-40 minute coffee break with a snack.  Then they work for about 2 more hours and go to a nice lunch.  They eat lunch with co-workers, friends or family near the workplace.  After eating lunch, they work about 3-4 hours with more coffee and take the 5pm work deadline seriously.  Since I am pregnant, I am finding this pace very nice! 

I will say the thing they take the most seriously is their coffee.  They want 2-5 cups per day.  Most offices not only provide regular coffee, but also neo-espresso espressos too.  If you are not drinking coffee, then you are drinking tea. Neo-espresso is a Swiss company nearby, so they not  only have the fancy machines everywhere but have entire stores devoted to this. The stores have entire walls the size of our apartment of k-cup choices and flavors.  Jason, Jason & the Ciszeks would love this—sadly it is wasted on me.

The main annoyance is the European keyboard is different, so it takes effort to type!  For example, the y and z key are in different places. 

All done with training, so we are going for an adventure into our fourth country—Germany.

--Lauren

Road Tripping Switzerland

  This time around in Switzerland we rented a car, a funny looking little Renault.  Since Lauren had to work in Basel which is less than an hour's drive from Zurich it worked out pretty well.  That also meant we got a chance to drive around the beautiful country coming to Basel as well as on our way to Italy Sunday.  On our way here from the airport we took a little bit of a detour to stop and see the Rhine falls near a town called Schaffhausen.  Compared to the Niagra Falls or other super water falls, they aren't quite that impressive but they are certainly beautiful.

  We had plenty of time (4 hours each way) to enjoy the sites and sounds of driving through Switzerland on our way to the race this weekend.  The sounds are especially entertaining as the radio never failed to provide a good laugh.  For a while we were too tired to mess with the radio but decided to give it another try after the morning talk shows (in German) wrapped up.  We checked in to one station that began with "The World's Greatest" in a throwback to high school.  That proved to be the newest song in their repertoire though as they quickly shifted to some classic (as in I've never even heard of the song) Rod Stewart.  Of course, the most interesting catch of the day was tuning in to "Achy Breaky Heart" which was nicely followed up by some early Micheal Jackson.

  That country "classic" was enough to keep us at least a little entertained as we got stuck in traffic at the Gotthard Pass Tunnel thanks to the rain, race traffic, and many Swiss trying to get back from long weekends.  This tunnel is impressive though, at 10.5 miles long it's the third longest in the world and is pretty much the only link between Switzerland and Milan except for a two lane pass over the mountain.  Thankfully there is a museum and the gas stations before the tunnel have lots of details if you ever find yourself nearby and curious about tunnels. 

View Larger Map

- Jordan

Italian Grand Prix

  Yesterday we left Basel bright and early (very) for Monza, Italy to see the Italian Grand Prix.  It's pretty unlikely we'll ever be able to afford the Monaco race which is on our anniversary and something we've wanted to do ever since we found that out; so this is probably our only opportunity to see one of these.  I tried to get some good pictures but on this track formula 1 cars clocked a top speed of 210.7 MPH and completed the 3.6 mile track in comfortably less than 1 minute 30 seconds.

 The park (Royal Villa of Monza) that the track is next to is pretty big (2.7 square miles) and traffic, parking, signage, and the like were all handled with typical Italian efficiency.  So after we spent about 45 minutes or so sitting still in a line of several hundred cars we eventually found an actual parking spot (while the Italians simply parked on the sidewalk, grass, and in the road in some cases Lauren wouldn't let me do that).  We also found that even though the Police don't speak English the guys making minimum wage selling parking stubs spoke terrific English.  Thanks to them we were able to find the bus (1/4 mile walk) which took us to the park about 1/2 mile from the entrance to the track.  Obviously it's Italy so nothing is normal, so after going through 2 ticket checkpoints where they didn't bother to check our bags we were able to head from the entrance another 1/2 mile or so to the actual track.  Eventually we ran across some Australians who cheered us up quite a bit (as Australians usually do) and made us feel a lot better about our choices in getting to Monza since they took the train and had to walk nearly 3 miles to get there.

  Oddly the Austalian was a Ferrari fan and not a Red Bull fan (has an Aussie driver).  I'm sure you can imagine the locals were big on team Ferrari (Scuderia Ferraria).  Here's a picture of their man Fernando Alonso who ended up finishing second after a nice starting move to pass the Australian driver Mark Webber.

  

  That's about all for now, the race and the trip were very long so we were pretty tired after making it in last night.  We'll certainly have more to come but we're both going to be doing some work and catching up on emails during the days this week.

Arriving in Swiss Country

Today we arrived after a long flight into Zurich. We are driving this trip, so we got our fancy rental car. Fancy by European standards that is--but we did upgrade to get a GPS.

We picked up my work colleague & headed to the Rhine Falls. The Rhine Falls are Europe's largest falls. They were memorable for the intricate way the falls went down & the mountain in the middle. It was neat. Then we drove to Basel, my work base. We even saw a Swiss wreck-with slowed us according to Jordan.

Then we got settled into our Ikea like apartment in Basel. We explored the city a little & had a nice dinner with my work colleague. Then we had to do our traditional EU things by visiting the Irish pub nearby & our favorite grocery store Migros.

First impression of Basel is wonderful. It has the charm of the Swiss, the feel of a small city, and the nice pedestrian shopping district. I am very happy to spend the next week in this city. And now I really want my job to let me relocate for a year!

Off to rest because tomorrow is a long day at the F1 Italian Grand Prix...more crazy adventures to come...

-Lauren


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Babymoon

We are in the airport now on our way to Switzerland once again.




From Lauren:

It's our Babymoon! We aren't really believers in this kind of thing, but when my work asked me to train in Switzerland, I jumped on the chance! After all, we love Switzerland. Our trip will take us to four countries total. On Sunday we are attending an F1 race in Italy, which will be our biggest outing. Our ten day home base is Basel, Switzerland.

Looking forward to new adventures & driving around Europe. Here's to the baby's first international trip!!! Hopefully only the first of many for this one.

See ya in late September for football friends & family!!

Love, Lauren (& baby)

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