basel pics

Laurel in front of the Basel Rathaus and Marktplatz trolley stop on our first morning exploring the city. We had just been to the Market in the background and picked up a hunk of the most amazing cheese either of us had ever tasted!

Once again, my obsession for European doors rears it’s head: The stones for the first door on the left were laid and this house built in 1519! That is only 27 years after Columbus smacked into Cuba. There is nothing special about the house, it is on a street full of homes built in the period and continually occupied since they were first build. Basel has been untouched by war for four and a half centuries and it is amazing to stroll down a street of these homes and find nestled in a nook between two of them a stained glass window from the 1930’s in the front of a small book shop that was originally built in the time of Napoleon.

A section of narrow houses along the Rhine on the Klein Basel side. One of them really caught my eye as I was strolling up the river. The shorter one of the three is named ‘The Red Snail.’ Click on the picture to see the tile mosaic plaque.

I drive Laurel nuts while walking in Hamburg and the cities of Europe, checking out odd, curious, and old bikes. This one even stopped her though. A bricklayer who was working just out of the shot covered his bike in fake giraffe skin and rocks it all over town as his primary form of transportation. I would love to get a look at the guy’s living room!

Me on the bank of the River Rhine on the Klein Basel (north side of the Rhine). Behind me you can see the Basel Munster – one of my favorite places in all of Europe. Bocce in the side yard under the trees, quiet benches to read on in the back overlooking the river, the smell of incense and beeswax candles inside, the cool air moving through the narrow doorways, the dragon tile, the history in its walls and in the crypt, etc... etc…

A bronze 3D bronze map of old town Basel

You have to love the Swiss need for order. You have to have a license for your bike there. It you don’t have one then you get a ticket and if your bike is stolen before you put the tag on then your Swiss insurance company won’t cover the theft. Also, if you are pulled over and the bike is registered to another person and the cops think your excuse for having it is sketchy – then you go to jail and even Swiss bike cops carry machine guns.

Speaking of bikes – my favorite form of transportation… The signs above point to second my favorite form of transpiration: The Rhine River Fähri. These bad-boys have been running since 1877 and not one little drop of gasoline has every been used in their day-to-day operation. The boats are are silently drawn by the current between the two banks of the river. One river crossing costs 1.20CHF for adults and 0.60CHF for kids. There are four of them in Basel, the Wild Man, the Ueli (a court jester type figure), the Lion, and the Griffin – named after the three Guilds (social organizations) of Basel.

This is a shot of one of the Ferryboats as it docks at the base of the Munster.

A fine shot of the bow of one of the boats on a rainy day with my rental bike leaned up on one of the benches.

The inside of the Leu or ‘Lion’ Ferry boat’s cabin

Sorry… another picture of the ferry and the Munster. I really like both and so am sharing the wealth.

This gives you an idea of the size and shape of the boats.

Me sitting on the Rhine steps looking over at Basel. This is probably my second favorite spot in the world. It made me six kinds of happy to show Laurel the spot and to enjoy it again on a sunny summer day. The bridge in the background is the oldest bridge over the Rhine – well sort of… It has been rebuilt a few times and this one dates from the early 1900’s and had a major face-lift in the 1960’s.

Basel is FULL of fountains and you can drink out of every one of them. It is a fact that the city prides itself on. The Chicken-Dragon is everywhere and gets more than its share of recognition on the city's waterspouts.

This is a pedestrian street just off of Barfusserplatz (barefoot place – what a great name!). Mr. Wong’s Chinese, Starbucks, Paddy O’Reiley’s, and various other yummy spots dot the street. You will notice the netting over the street – almost all of Basel's pedestrian streets are covered with this mesh. It gives shade and keeps a light mist or quick afternoon shower from driving everyone back indoors. Hamburg should so pick this idea up and run with it!

In the foreground you can see a hundred+ year old tie ring for boats on the Rhine. The stone that it is hammered into is the size of a Toyota Corolla, so I don’t see the traditional narrow double-ended Rhine boats slipping any mooring on accident… they are still used every day all along the river and this one just ‘happened’ to have a nice view on the Munster…

Bocce is serious business in parks all over Europe. I read in an English paper last year that two old guys in Nice got into a knife fight over the outcome of a Saturday afternoon game. Things seemed more civil in this match. My buddy Flood loves the game and I am on the hunt for just the right set for him.

What you see here is the sarcophagus lid to the tomb of Queen Anna (Gertrude of Hohenburg), wife of Rudolf I of Habsburg. Local lore is that she chose to be buried in Basel, alongside her three-year-old son Karl or Charles, in an attempt to make up for her husband’s cruelty during his rule of Basel in the 1270s. She died in Vienna in 1281. Her body was moved from Vienna to Basel 15 years later. In 1770 the sarcophagus was opened and the remains of a woman, a child and a man (???) were found within. They were transferred to St. Blasien convent in soon afer although nowadays they rest in Kärnten, Austria.

Apparently, someone a hundred years or so ago was psychic and know that Laurel and I would be visiting Basel since the painted a fresco of us kissing in Munsterplatz…

Basel and all of Switzerland is a land of flags. The Swiss flag is everywhere 365 days a year – outside of businesses, homes, on bikes, on trucks, on every corner of every city street, on every bridge, etc... The only thing like it I have seen in the US would be the days just after September 11th, when everyone had American Flag stickers on their cars and flying in their yards. Or maybe all the flags flown in the yards of rural Texas. This particular flag is flying from the middle of the Mittelbrueck (middle bridge) and you can see the Rhine Steps in the background.

I have seen heroin-skinny mannequins and big-butt Latino mannequins in LA, but this was the first “big-boned” clothes hanger that I had ever come across. Not saying she is fat – just fluffy. A realistic portrayal of a lot of women in the English- and German-speaking worlds.

This is the Basel welcome sign as you cross from Saint Louis, France into Switzerland - just past the border guards with machine guns and the attack/drug dogs. Really.

Two medieval sculptures of Samson and Delilah at the moment of her betrayal. There are a couple of more of these scattered around the city and it seems as though there was a general distrust of women in Switzerland back in the day – the last woman executed for witchcraft in Europe was Anna Goeldi of Switzerland in 1782 – that was ONE year before US independence was recognized by Britain, King Kamehameha I of Hawaii gained control over the islands of Hawaii, and James Watt patented the steam engine.

This was a spooky tomb cover! It is a mother with a suckling baby breaking out of the grave – baby leading the charge. Click on the picture for a larger version.

On a blank white wall next to the Elizabeth Church local artists were invited to doodle and what they came up with were really thought provoking stick figures that spanned topics from the War in Iraq to globalization, the World Bank to steroids.

Basel is a city of Art - it is everywhere. A Buddha stone seat made from the same red sandstone that the Munster and most of the stone doorways and arches in town. This one was just sitting out front of someone’s house. You know there is a great story to tell there.

This huge sculpture of sheet-steel is in Museumplatz just up from the fountain. It is unfinished and rusting a bit. I am not sure if it was the artist’s intent, but they can’t keep people from tagging the thing and they have to sand blast it constantly.

Basel as seen from across the Rhine just before sunset


Basel, Switzerland 2008

The Basel Stadt Argent, a black bishop's crozier on a white field with the crook turned toward the hoist. The above Basel Stadt Argent is found everywhere in Basel City and Canton. It is as omnipresent as the Red, White, and Blue in small town America.
	Laurel in front of the Basel Rathaus and Marktplatz trolley stop on our first morning exploring the city. We had just been to the Market in the background and picked up a hunk of the most amazing cheese either of us had ever tasted!

Once again, my obsession for European doors rears it’s head: The stones for the first door on the left were laid and this house built in 1519! That is only 27 years after Columbus smacked into Cuba. There is nothing special about the house, it is on a street full of homes built in the period and continually occupied since they were first build. Basel has been untouched by war for four and a half centuries and it is amazing to stroll down a street of these homes and find nestled in a nook between two of them a stained glass window from the 1930’s in the front of a small book shop that was originally built in the time of Napoleon.

	A section of narrow houses along the Rhine on the Klein Basel side. One of them really caught my eye as I was strolling up the river. The shorter one of the three is named ‘The Red Snail.’ Click on the picture to see the tile mosaic plaque.

	I drive Laurel nuts while walking in Hamburg and the cities of Europe, checking out odd, curious, and old bikes. This one even stopped her though. A bricklayer who was working just out of the shot covered his bike in fake giraffe skin and rocks it all over town as his primary form of transportation. I would love to get a look at the guy’s living room!

	Me on the bank of the River Rhine on the Klein Basel (north side of the Rhine). Behind me you can see the Basel Munster – one of my favorite places in all of Europe. Bocce in the side yard under the trees, quiet benches to read on in the back overlooking the river, the smell of incense and beeswax candles inside, the cool air moving through the narrow doorways, the dragon tile, the history in its walls and in the crypt, etc... etc…

	A shot of the Munster without me. As a note the roof tiles last for 100+ years, but do every now and then need replacing. They were done in Basel for centuries with a special glazing process, but the knowledge has died out there. When a small section of the roof had to be replaced recently the church fathers found a man in Southeastern France that could make them properly, but it took them 6 years to find the guy.

A bronze 3D bronze map of old town Basel


You have to love the Swiss need for order. You have to have a license for your bike there. It you don’t have one then you get a ticket and if your bike is stolen before you put the tag on then your Swiss insurance company won’t cover the theft. Also, if you are pulled over and the bike is registered to another person and the cops think your excuse for having it is sketchy – then you go to jail and even Swiss bike cops carry machine guns.

Speaking of bikes – my favorite form of transportation… The signs above point to second my favorite form of transpiration: The Rhine River Fähri. These bad-boys have been running since 1877 and not one little drop of gasoline has every been used in their day-to-day operation. The boats are are silently drawn by the current between the two banks of the river. One river crossing costs 1.20CHF for adults and 0.60CHF for kids. There are four of them in Basel, the Wild Man, the Ueli (a court jester type figure), the Lion, and the Griffin – named after the three Guilds (social organizations) of Basel.

This is a shot of one of the Ferryboats as it docks at the base of the Munster.	A fine shot of the bow of one of the boats on a rainy day with my rental bike leaned up on one of the benches.

The inside of the Leu or ‘Lion’ Ferry boat’s cabin	The inside of the ‘Griffin’ cabin with the canvas weather tarp up. The captain of this boat had a cabin that was somewhat similar to my grandmother's knitting corner in her living room. The guy worked barefoot and smiled the whole time. There are worse jobs in this world…

A diagram of how the ferry operates. While you might not read German, it is pretty self-explanatory, so I won’t translate…	Sorry… another picture of the ferry and the Munster. I really like both and so am sharing the wealth.

This gives you an idea of the size and shape of the boats.

	Me sitting on the Rhine steps looking over at Basel. This is probably my second favorite spot in the world. It made me six kinds of happy to show Laurel the spot and to enjoy it again on a sunny summer day. The bridge in the background is the oldest bridge over the Rhine – well sort of… It has been rebuilt a few times and this one dates from the early 1900’s and had a major face-lift in the 1960’s.




Basel is FULL of fountains and you can drink out of every one of them. It is a fact that the city prides itself on. The Chicken-Dragon is everywhere and gets more than its share of recognition on the city's waterspouts.

	This is a pedestrian street just off of Barfusserplatz (barefoot place – what a great name!). Mr. Wong’s Chinese, Starbucks, Paddy O’Reiley’s, and various other yummy spots dot the street. You will notice the netting over the street – almost all of Basel's pedestrian streets are covered with this mesh. It gives shade and keeps a light mist or quick afternoon shower from driving everyone back indoors. Hamburg should so pick this idea up and run with it!

	In the foreground you can see a hundred+ year old tie ring for boats on the Rhine. The stone that it is hammered into is the size of a Toyota Corolla, so I don’t see the traditional narrow double-ended Rhine boats slipping any mooring on accident… they are still used every day all along the river and this one just ‘happened’ to have a nice view on the Munster…

The trees to the left of the Munster were maybe 15’ tall when I first went to Basel. Now they provide shade for a park where there were 5 or 6 games of bocce going on when I strolled through and there was a group of little kids playing tag among the tree trunks.	Bocce is serious business in parks all over Europe. I read in an English paper last year that two old guys in Nice got into a knife fight over the outcome of a Saturday afternoon game. Things seemed more civil in this match. My buddy Flood loves the game and I am on the hunt for just the right set for him.

	What you see here is the sarcophagus lid to the tomb of Queen Anna (Gertrude of Hohenburg), wife of Rudolf I of Habsburg. Local lore is that she chose to be buried in Basel, alongside her three-year-old son Karl or Charles, in an attempt to make up for her husband’s cruelty during his rule of Basel in the 1270s. She died in Vienna in 1281. Her body was moved from Vienna to Basel 15 years later. In 1770 the sarcophagus was opened and the remains of a woman, a child and a man (???) were found within. They were transferred to St. Blasien convent in soon afer although nowadays they rest in Kärnten, Austria.

	Apparently, someone a hundred years or so ago was psychic and know that Laurel and I would be visiting Basel since the painted a fresco of us kissing in Munsterplatz…

	Laurel made me wear a funny hat in Dublin – it was her turn.

	Basel and all of Switzerland is a land of flags. The Swiss flag is everywhere 365 days a year – outside of businesses, homes, on bikes, on trucks, on every corner of every city street, on every bridge, etc... The only thing like it I have seen in the US would be the days just after September 11th, when everyone had American Flag stickers on their cars and flying in their yards. Or maybe all the flags flown in the yards of rural Texas. This particular flag is flying from the middle of the Mittelbrueck (middle bridge) and you can see the Rhine Steps in the background.

	I have seen heroin-skinny mannequins and big-butt Latino mannequins in LA, but this was the first “big-boned” clothes hanger that I had ever come across. Not saying she is fat – just fluffy. A realistic portrayal of a lot of women in the English- and German-speaking worlds.

	This is the Basel welcome sign as you cross from Saint Louis, France into Switzerland - just past the border guards with machine guns and the attack/drug dogs. Really.

	Two medieval sculptures of Samson and Delilah at the moment of her betrayal. There are a couple of more of these scattered around the city and it seems as though there was a general distrust of women in Switzerland back in the day – the last woman executed for witchcraft in Europe was Anna Goeldi of Switzerland in 1782 – that was ONE year before US independence was recognized by Britain, King Kamehameha I of Hawaii gained control over the islands of Hawaii, and James Watt patented the steam engine.

	This was a spooky tomb cover! It is a mother with a suckling baby breaking out of the grave – baby leading the charge. Click on the picture for a larger version.

	On a blank white wall next to the Elizabeth Church local artists were invited to doodle and what they came up with were really thought provoking stick figures that spanned topics from the War in Iraq to globalization, the World Bank to steroids.



	Basel is a city of Art - it is everywhere. A Buddha stone seat made from the same red sandstone that the Munster and most of the stone doorways and arches in town. This one was just sitting out front of someone’s house. You know there is a great story to tell there.

	This huge sculpture of sheet-steel is in Museumplatz just up from the fountain. It is unfinished and rusting a bit. I am not sure if it was the artist’s intent, but they can’t keep people from tagging the thing and they have to sand blast it constantly.


2001 & 2002

	Basel as seen from across the Rhine just before sunset

	The alter, arches and some stained glass in the Basel Munster

	The Banholf SSB in the main train station in Basel and just in front is the city's largest trolley stop. I can’t take credit for this picture. It is a scanned in postcard that I sent home during my trip.

	The Basel Munster as seen on a beautiful spring day

	Contained in the Munster is a crypt and there is also a cemetery inside the church walls. The first picture to the left is of that cemetery and the archway leading to it. The second picture is of the head stone of Erasmus (1469? - 1536). He lived at the time of the Renaissance and was called Prince of the Humanists.

	Another shot of the stained glass behind the alter.

	Various stained glass windows in the Munster.

	Fountains are huge in Basel. All of the spout potable water for drinking. The first picture, however is a sign pointing the way to a fountain of a different sort. The second picture is of a small fountain near Marketplatz. Dragons are also a big theme in Basel. It is because of the St. George link to the city.

	Jean Tinguely’s fountain is found in Theatreplatz. It is comprises of metal sculptors in a body of water that are animated with water pressure. They move and water sprays this way and that. In the winter, when the water freezes, the fountain is otherworldly beautiful!

	Marketplatz as seen from above. This too is from a post card that I sent home. The red building in the middle is the town hall and is quite impressive from the ground.

	A couple of residential homes on one of the narrow side streets near the Munster.

	A view of the River Rhine as seen form the rear garden of the Munster.

	Basel and the River Rhine as seen from the north bank in Klein Basel. The little dots in the water are swimmers. There were maybe fifteen of them, all ages, swimming and having a good time.

	The steps on the north bank on the Rhine lead down into the river, a very popular place for the locals to sit and watch the sunset. I spent many afternoons there reading and writing in my journal.

	An original 14th Century (?) floor tile just in front of the high pulpit in the Munster. Again, the dragon theme.

	My rental car while I was in Basel. A Smart Car is about half the size of a VW Bug and has a 1200cc motorcycle engine in it. It was a fun little car to play around town in, but SCARRY on the highway and not all of my climbing gear fit in the back.

	Me next to the Smart Car so that you can see the proportions properly.

	A bike trailer just outside my hotel that carried the guy’s groceries and the dog to guard them.

	One of the barges on the Rhine that cross using the river current as power and a cable across the river as a guide.

	Stout looking horses in a field near a climbing area just outside of Basel. The grass there was Ireland Green!