There are around sixty Federal Scholarship holders currently affiliated with the University, but only around thirty of them came on the trip. Considering the train, hotel and almost all meals were paid for, I can only imagine that the other students already had plans, were too busy or sick, like my housemate. As soon as I received the email about the trip, I signed up, and then emailed the people I met on ski camp who live in Basel to see if they were around this weekend and wanted to meet up, since it is always nicer to be shown around a city by somebody who knows it. Actually, I lied before, the peak of my scholarship was definitely having my ski camp subsidised. This weekend comes easily in second place though. It has been really fun, informative and interesting. All possible because Basel is a very very different city than Geneva, with much more for a visitor to see and do.
The trip started with an early meeting at the station to catch the train to Basel, check into the hotel, after which we had a free afternoon until dinner. We were staying at the Dorint, which is located outside the old town of Basel, across the Rhine, in which the locals call "Little Basel", as opposed to "Big Basel" (both of which sound much better in their original Swiss-German). It was a lovely hotel, except for the minor problem that we were sharing rooms and the two single beds which made up the double bed in the room couldn't be moved more than a couple of centimetres apart due to built in side tables. Luckily I was placed with a girl from Argentina who could speak English, otherwise it would have been an even more awkward situation.
I guess now would be a good time for me to locate Basel for all you lovely readers, in case you've never heard of it and perhaps impart some of the random facts I remember from my tour this morning.
As you can see, Basel (Basle in German or Bâle in French) is located to the north of Switzerland and borders both France and Germany. Supposedly there is a pole in the port of Basel which marks the intersection of the three countries. The airport of the city is actually in France, with Switzerland buying the land and the road leading there. It is probably the only Swiss city which does not have a view of the Alps and one of the rare ones that isn't by a lake.
According to my tour guide, the name of the town comes from a mythical creature, the Basilisk, which can be found in various places around the city holding their coat of arms, on which is a crosier, a stylised staff synifying the fact that Basel was ruled by Prince-Bishops before the Reformation.
The city is the third largest in the country, after Zurich and Geneva, though it feels bigger than Geneva as the old town is larger and there are many more shops and people around on Saturday, and in fact it was only in the last couple of years that its population fell below Geneva's. This is supposedly in part due to the fact that the half-canton of Basel-City taxes its higher income earners more than Basel-Country.
Anyway, we had Saturday afternoon off, which we used to eat a long lunch and walk around, focusing mainly on the Rhine, which is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, originating in the Swiss Alps and ending in the North Sea, acting as part of the border between Switzerland and Germany as well as between France and Germany. The bridge in the above photo is one of the oldest across the river and the reason why Switzerland owns the land on both sides of the river here is because they wanted control of the bridge.
Though if you didn't want to walk across the river, you could take one of the four ferries, which have been crossing the Rhine for the past 150 years. They are motorless and work by using the current of the river, via the shape and angle of the boat which is controlled by a rod which can be swung from one side of the boat to the other depending on which direction it needs to go.
Basel is sometimes called the "cultural capital of Switzerland" and it really deserves this title due to its 30 odd museums, though some of them are collections of the strangest things like, Sammlung Friedhof Hörnli which houses funernal objects, and the Hoosesagg Museeum which advertises itself to be the world's smallest museum and displays small objects which can fit into ones pocket in themes in a window.
We saw this fountain made of kinetic art by Jean Tinguely and decided to go to the Tinguely Museum. He made 'artwork' by collecting items from junk yards and putting them together with some sort of motor along some sort of theme. I didn't understand the art aspect of it, but it was kind of cool walking around and pressing big red buttons to get the sculptures to start, and seeing how everything was connected to each other and moved or made sounds, one of them being so big, you could walk on and in it.
Basel also boasts Switzerland's tallest building at 105m. There are other structures taller, but this is the tallest building. And on the top 31st floor, with a fairly decent view of the city, is Bar Rouge, so named due to the red lighting, where we partied after dinner.
Which was probably not a great idea, since we had a full itinerary on Sunday, starting fairly early with check out planned for 9:15am with a tour of the old town starting at 10am at the Rathaus; a gorgeous red sandstone building dating from the 16th century, with lovely colourful roof tiling and beautifully decorated with frescos.
Next door to the building was the TALLY WEiJL main store which had a huge poster starting "We make Basel totally sexy" with an appropriately dressed girl, which kind of spoiled the view a little. Though that was the only piece of tacky advertising in the old town, which was such a nice contrast to Geneva with all its lit signs along the lakefront advertising banks and watch brands.
Actually, the whole old town of Basel had more character than Geneva, with its history of guilds which the streets are named after in the lower areas, and the grander buildings on the hills with colourful shutters and flowering creepers, with what seemed like more restaurants and cafes with outdoor sitting.
After the tour, it was time for another couple of museums, the first of which was the Kunstmuseum during what was planned to be our lunchtime, but they had a rare Van Gogh exhibition opening which most of us wanted to see. It was titled "Between Earth and Heaven, the Landscapes" and I really enjoyed it. They bought Van Gogh paintings from all over North America and Europe on this theme together and displayed them in chronological order. Starting with his time in Nuenen, where he returned to live with his parents after failed attempts as an art dealer and a preacher, and where he attended the Art Academy in Antwerp. His pieces from this time period were so different from what people associate with him, in a different style with tight brushtrokes using a darker colour palette. The exhibition then followed him around France, starting in Paris where he was influenced by the Impressionists there, using brighter colours and freer brushstrokes. After two years in the city, he decided to move to the countryside for his health and went to Arles, where he painted his sunflower series (not part of the exhibition) and where he mutilated his left ear. After which he admitted himself to a sanatorium in Saint-Remy, where his paintings are pervaded with coils and swirls, which can be seen in his magnum opus, The Starry Night (also not part of the exhibition), a painting I remember on the title screen of an old game, I think it was Hocus Pocus. The last room of the exhibition was of paintings from his time in Auvers, which was his most prolific period, but also where he ended his life.
Anyway, the last museum we went to, Foundation Beyeler, is one that I wouldn't have gone to on my own, and was kind of interesting, with a fairly small collection of Western artwork ranging from impressionism to pop art, which was displayed in time order with collections of artifacts from Africa and Oceania. It made for a strange juxaposition, with the information booklet trying to draw the parallels between them. Most of the group spent a short time in the museum and rested outside in the gardens, which were quite pretty with a pretty view of the surrounding countryside, since the museum wasn't in the centre of the city.
