Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Sunday Afternoon in Basel

Yesterday we hopped on a train and went to Basel. We like walking over borders and so we walked, caught a tram and walked again to the french border and wandered for a while in France. We like walking over borders because it is something you cannot do in Australia.

It was a very warm day for the end of November. We even saw people in t-shirts. Very nice.

In France we wandered along a road for quite a while. After it got dark, we saw a map in a town, had a snack and walked back hoping we'd recognise the road that led to the border. After a while we crossed Rue du Bale (with a little hat on the a) which we recognised as the french for Basel. So we turned down it and sure enough after a few blocks there was the swiss border.

We caught a tram back to the station, saw that there would be a lot of trains for the next hour or so as it was about 6:30pm so we caught a tram back to the christmas market we had seen from the last tram. It was very pretty with lots of lights and stalls. It was in the grounds a church. We had a lovely onion, cheese and potato slicy thing. Then we caught a train back to Zurich.

These are all things you can't do in Australia in the same way. You can't catch a train to another major city in an hour or so. You can't get a GA. You can't walk into another country. You won't see pretty Christmas markets in the same way. You can't use public transport so easily to move around a city knowing there will be another tram in 7 minutes. Such a gentle day with nothing very exciting happening but really very nice.

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