Hello and warning: you now have a new author. Megan had to go home after 90 days (been thrown out of better places) and now dad had to pick up the load.
After being alone in Switzerland for 5 weeks, Therese came back and one of the first things we did was head out of town! We went to Basel with Bert and Sandy Otero (I work with Bert) to see a Van Gogh exhibition (which was very nice) and to enjoy a couple of days in another part of Switzerland. Basel is a two hour train ride, north and east and sits on the Rhein (or Rhine) river, bordering Germany and France. Because of it's proximity to Germany, we were looking forward to some good Weiss beer and German style food.
The building that you see here is the town hall. You have to look closely because the picture doesn't do it justice, but every detail on this building is just immaculate. It sits at the center of town (Marktplatz) and in fine swiss fashion is a source of great pride. The stones here are not sandstone like many of the other large buildings in the area, but are painted to look like sandstone.
Speaking of swiss pride, I have to tell you a story. We are checking into our hotel and Sandy asks the desk clerk where we can get some good German or Swiss-German food. Oh boy, did we get straightened out. After being reminded that we were in Switzerland (not Germany) and that Swiss food was Swiss and that Swiss-German is like saying French-Italian, we decided to leave well enough alone and figure it out for ourselves. By the way, the language in this part of Switzerland is officially Swiss-German and everything in Switzerland is Swiss-something; Swiss-French, Swiss-German or Swiss-Italian. These people sometimes make you crazy. By the way we found exactly what we were looking for the next day and had a sumptuous lunch of bratwursts (German, Swiss and Vienna, Austrian syle) and some great Schneiderweisse and dunkelweiss beers.
The picture on the right is the Barfusserplatz. Platz is place as in marketplace. Barfusser harkens back to the day when Franciscan monks were in plentiful supply (there was a monastery nearby) and the platz was named after these shoeless pedestrians who were forbidden from wearing even sandals except on the coldest of winter days. The name literally means "barefooters place." In this picture you can also see the green electric train cars which take you everywhere in town and are extremely convenient and reliable.
The Van Gogh exhibition was fantastic. It was an exhibition of his landscapes and began with his early works which were painted in darker colors and more traditional Dutch style, then progressed through his impressionist, neo-impressionist and ultimately his own very distinct style with bold strokes and vertical, horizontal or swirling patterns. The collection was first-rate and contained over 100 works of his art, including many of which you may be familiar with.
The tour itself started by telling the story of his life. He was a truly tragic figure. He was deeply religious (his father was a pastor), unable to succeed at anything and thus dependent upon others for his livelihood. He was to depend upon his brother Theo. This inability to support himself also removed the possiblity of marriage from his future. The combinaion of these things tormented him and he spent some time in a mental institution and ultimately under the care of a physician. His brother had begun a family and the weight of all of this prevented him from seeing a way out of his hopelessness and he ultimately turned a gun on himself at age 37. In a twist of ironic fate, his brother joined him in death 6 months later.
We really enjoyed Basel. We were able to do so with our friends the Otero's. Bert and Sandy have been in Europe in three different places; London, Madrid and now Lausanne along with us. Bert is a retired USAF Colonel so we have lots in common. And they are easy-going and love to travel which makes them great companions.We took a two hour walking tour of the city which taught us a great deal about it's history and always enhances the enjoyment of a new place and gives you lots of trivia and other interesting facts and nuances of life in another place. We saw more fountains (really?)
, enjoyed the market where be bought some tasty olives (to go with the gin + tonics we had in our room), and generally enjoyed this beautiful but very accessible and friendly town in northern Switzerland.
