Oldtime Basel
Trip Start
Dec 16, 2007
1
24
42
Trip End
Feb 24, 2008
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Basel,
Switzerland
Friday, January 18, 2008
Unfortunately to change lines at Val de Fontenay we had to change levels, without the assistance of escalators or lifts. Unfortunately our luggage, especially Belinda's, has increased in size and weight after Disneyland, if it wasn't heavy enough already. During some of the stair work Belinda managed to clunk her extremely heavy case (we both had to sit on it to close it!) down onto the stair so hard that one of the primary wheels broke off! As usual the anxious, nervous laughing was our first reaction but while Belinda was reeling in shock I had to assess the damage and decide what to do.
We ended up doing a bag swap, I carried Belinda's overweight bag while she rolled my "light as a feather" case around the station. Luckily I was able to roll the case along awkwardly on its 3 remaining wheels, very concious of the fact that it could lose more wheels and that I looked like a twat leaning over it to keep it from tipping.
At Magenta we were anticipating a relatively simple trip up to the surface on the lifts, from where we had a few hundred metres of walk along the street to Gare de l'Est.
Brio in Basel
As fate would have it things were not so simple. The last of 2 lifts to the surface decided it would malfuction and not leave the concourse level. As such we had to lug the cases slowly up a few flights of stairs, only to find that we were at another mezzanine with another flight of busy steps up to the surface. To our surprie the lift then passed up past us so we waited and sure enough it was working once again.Finally at the surface, we precariously made our way to Gare de l'Est only to find that our TGV to Basel was yet to be allocated a platform. While we waited a large crowd grew around the departures display until the platform was finally announced, some 10 minutes before departure. It was then a mad rush as 2 trains worth of people made their way to the platform then had to move up the 20 carriage train. The rear set was only running as far as Strasbourg while the front set was running through to Zurich (via Basel).
Our packed service was run by a 2007-built train and featured the updated interior. Frankly this revised train is disappointing. In essence the carriages are exactly the same as the original TGV carriages and just have the newer, larger Duplex engines powering the train.
The interior is also basically the same but with different colours and slightly different seats. In fact the seats are worse than the originals because the foot rests stick out, scratching our legs, although they do feature handy cup holders and reading lights. The colours are going to date really badly, with bright purples, pinks and reds that already make the train very busy to be in.
The service itself was good and was my first time on a 320km/h high speed train service.
Oldtimer Ride
A plus was the onboard WiFi which was like a personal inflight entertainment system on a plane. One can look up where the train is, how fast it is travelling, play games, watch movies and also surf the net when travelling in select areas. I was interested to see that we were travelling at 220km/h through the French countrside after leaving the LGV. Too bad that our dinner was extortionately expensive and the staff didn't remember to unlock the toilets or make sure all the communication system panels were actually closed during our journey...The trip was over pretty quickly thanks to the new LGV Est-Europeen and we arrived into Basel SBB station at 9:15pm. Naturally our first task was to get to the hotel so we followed the tram signs, just out to the wrong side of the station. Undeterred we looked at a map on the single tram stop at the southern end of the station and walked down the road to another stop where the route 2 (which run to our hotel at Messeplatz) stops. Unfortunately when we got there the ticket machine only took coins and we only had Swiss Franc coins.
A walk back to the station, broken case in tow, revealed SBB touch-screen ticket machines that not only sold local transport tickets but also took Euro notes, giving change in Swiss Franc coins. While we were there we walked back through the station to the main (northern) side where there is a large tram interchange and caught the number 2 from here.
I love Basel's trams. They run on narrow gauge tracks like in Zurich, with a variety of stock that is reminiscent of Zurich, Vienna and Melbourne.
Chilling Out
They come very frequently, speed along at a good pace and everyone uses them. Many streets are bascially just tram tracks with bitumen around them, nobody dares drive through there unless they have to because the trams are so good and so frequent. Even when we arrived the trams were running every 15 minutes, all the way up until midnight.Our hotel was nice, with a large room and free internet access. As appears to be some Basel standard the hotel provided us with transport passes valid for our entire stay, granting us access to the entire public transport network. When we awoke we decided to have breakfast in the hotel, as our reading of the hotel guide implied that this would be free. It was the usual simple affair of cereal, pastries, bread and cold meats.
Firstly we headed back to the station to visit the Frey cake shop and browse their delights. Very yummy looking stuff but unfortunately we were not ready to be eating that kind of food just after breakfast. We continued on the trams into the Marktplatz, the centre of old Basel. From here we visited some of Belinda's favourite places; SpielHuus where there was a bit of doll house stuff for her and a whole rack of Brio stuff for me, Migro and CoOp for some Swiss supermarket fare and some nice bakeries around that part of town.
Most of our time was spent in the Globus department store on the platz, buying a new case for Belinda. She ended up choosing the newr version of my Samsonite case, aware that she was going to have to cut down on her luggage to fit it all in and enjoy the light weight and convenience that I have.
Museumsnacht
It was straight back to the hotel to take Belinda's luggage out of her old case, filter out the unnecessary stuff and then put the rest into the new case. It was a tight squeeze but we managed to get it all in.It was then another short trip into the Marktplatz for some nice late lunch snacks and Rivella before returning to Hotel Muncherhof, where we met up with Belinda's family friend. She had very kindly agreed to meet up with us at the hotel to take Belinda's broken case and excess luggage until she returns to Basel with her parents after I've left.
Who can resist the Basel trams, right? So what else was there to do than take the tram again, to the banks of the Rhine. Here we popped into the Laeckerli Huus here to grab some of their signature biscuits. Then it was a walk across the river to a funky pen shop up a steep riverside lane before taking a walk up the main shopping drag. Belinda was on the hunt for new shoes since she left her sneakers in her broken case and the heels on her boots have decided to peel into pieces. Unfortunately for her everyone here seems to have small feet so its hard to find shoes that she fits into!
Dinner was a quick and small affair at Maccas once again before the tram whisked us back to the hotel. When we were arriving into Messeplatz we saw one of the "Oldtimer" trams running by our hotel, in preparation for that evening's "Museumsnacht" activities. All the museums in greater Basel were open until 2am and the old trams would be running a shuttle loop around the network with one flat price providing rides and entries to all the museums. Us "youths" were allowed free access and rides for this interesting event.
We couldn't pass up the opportunity to ride the Oldtimer trams so we went for a round trip out to the suburbs and back around the city. We went so far that Belinda was able to get reception on her German SIM card with her host carrier instead of roaming, even though we were still in Switzerland! This was fun but it tired us out so when we got back to the hotel Belinda crashed and I worked on the blog, cleaning up the entries I had sent from the phone and starting on the Disneyland one.
