It’s 5:00 AM in Basel, Switzerland. I’m looking out of the window in our hotel room and see the first signs of dawn in the eastern sky. We arrived in Basel yesterday after a fairly typical journey from the West Coast of America – about 24 hours of travel from door to door. We had two plane transfers – the first in Philadelphia and the second in Frankfurt.
We were about an hour late departing Philadelphia. As we boarded we notice about a half dozen law enforcement officers at the entrance to the jetway. They were pulling individuals aside and talking with them. It was pretty clear they were looking for someone. When the plane was boarded and ready to push back we got word that customs was going to have to go through all our checked luggage. So we waited about 45 minutes while they opened the luggage hold and did their job. I wonder if they found what they were looking for. Finally we pushed back, had a bit of a wait in line to take off and eventually were airborne. Fortunately we had a long enough layover in Frankfurt that the delay didn’t cause any problems.
I carry my Canon Powershot G11 with me wherever I go in case there are any G11 moments. When on vacation there are a lot. I’d like to share some of those moments with you beginning with our wait for our plane in LAX and extending to a remarkable discovery we made on our walk back from dinner last night. By the way, dinner was in an Asian restaurant a few blocks from the hotel.
I have some favorites. I especially like the boarding photographs in Philadelphia. We were boarding as the sun was setting and the passengers cast silhouettes on a Plexiglas screen. I think the resulting images captured a bit of the human side of travel.
Today we’re going to explore Basel. From Basel you can easily get to three countries – France, Germany and of course Switzerland. It is situated in the northwest corner of Switzerland where the river Rhein leaves Switzerland and becomes the border between Germany (Baden-Württemberg) and France (Alsace). We will walk from our hotel to old town where we will enjoy the sites.
I’m particularly interested in visiting the Münster cathedral. Construction started on it in 1019 and wasn’t completed until 1500.
Basel has a proud history as a center of printing. The Schwabe printing house was established in 1488 by Johannes Petri, an apprentice of Johannes Gutenberg. It is still in operation today making it the oldest printing house in Western civilization. The writings of Erasmus and John Calvin were first published in Basel. Other notable publications include the first anatomy of the human body written by Andreas Vesalius and the Joachim Meyer’s Kunst des Fechten ("The Art of Fighting"). I think my wife, being an avid reader, will really relate to this part of Basel’s history.
Basel is also the home of the first public museum in Europe. The collection became the core of the current-day Basel Museum of Art.
So I think we have a wonderful day in store for us. The weather is going to be hot – 96 degrees. And thunderstorms are forecast for tonight. This could get very exciting.
Well, the sun is about to rise and it’s time to get started on another stupid wonderful day in paradise.