On the first day, I arrived by train, and Valentina's sister Paulina met me at the train station! She showed me around town and then accompanied me on my site seeing! We went to the river, and the famous bridge with all the flags of Switzerland on it.
Here's the river and Bridge!
From the bridge Paulina took me up a small alleyway that led to some of the museums, and the Munster church, that also has a really nice look out over the river.
Here's the outlook over the river from the church:
Then we went into the church itself, here's the door, and the next picture shows some of the gargoyles attached. Paulina filled me in, apparently the gargoyles were elephants, but since no one in Basel had actually seen an elephant they made the statues based on what they had heard about them... not an easy task.
Then she took me inside a courtyard that is attached to the church, there are all these plaques with the names of people who were either somewhat famous or did things for the city. There's also a few graves.
From the courtyard we headed inside the church, see below for yet another blurry church photo.
And from inside the church we headed up to the bell tower. We got a little lost on the way, the place on the inside is like a maze, and super small. I also got to see the mechanism that controls the bell.
View of the roof of the church, it's so pretty!
The courtyard I was in, when looking down from above.
Views of the city from the top of the tower
The bell, that scared the crap out of us when it struck just as we were standing next to it.
Coming back down you can see on the front of the church the astronomical clock and a clock above it, that is really a sundial...
View of the church from the front:
Then we walked through the town, everything is decorated for Carnaval. Basel's Carnaval is almost as famous as and big as the one in Venice. It's actually going on right now, but I had to work so I didn't get to see much of it.
"This is not a fountain"
From the church we headed into the main towns quare where they have the market and the building where they hold all their political meetings.
Here's the building where they hold the meetings, and everything that looks like gold, is gold.
Then we went inside the building, or at least the part you could get into anyway without having a security guard chase you around as if you were on an episode of cops.
After all that climbing and walking, Paulina and I decided to get Chinese food. Yes, it sounds weird but it was delicious to have fried rice again. I took a picture of all my money before I spent it.
The tallest building in Basel!
And the giant clock shop next to it!
From there Paulina and I decided to do a little shopping, I bought a decent pair of earrings. Then we went to the top floor where they had all the Carnaval stuff and played around with all the noisemakers and masks. This is me below:
That night, after eating dinner and playing some old school Mario Cart with Paulina, Paulina, Valentina and I decided to head to the bars! I got some night pictures of Basel on the way!
And they all turned out blurry, so I didn't take very many... :-(
The next morning I woke up and decided to go for a walk. Basel has self guided tours you can follow through different parts of town, and all of this part of Switzerland is known for having really kick ass water fountains.
View alongside the river.
The famous Three Kings hotel!
My walk around the city.
Found the old gate to the city, back when they used to have a wall and stuff.
REALLY old door.
Then I continued my walk back down town...
Found the famous fountain!
And the Elizabethan church not to far from there...
Oh look! My name, on a sign that's written in Swiss German.
Front of the church. It's actually much much smaller on the inside than it looks from the outside.
From there I went to grab some pictures of this really cool wall I had seen the night before. Recognize anyone?
After checking out the wall, Valentina managed to get off work to come meet me for lunch, and spend the rest of the day hanging out with me! We got Piadina... it was like tortilla bread with cream cheese and meat inside... and we also had mandarin orange soda!!!
From there Valentina and I went to find another really cool mural. If you didn't recognize anyone on the last wall, hopefully you will on this one.
Then Valentina and I drove to a small town just outside of Basel to check out the Carnaval happening there. Turns out there wasn't much going on during the day time, but there were a ton of cool Carnaval decorations!
Since there wasn't much going on in that town, we headed towards the 3 points! Here is where Germany, Switzerland and France all connect (in the water). Tri-point pole points to the direction of each country.
Me! On the boarder of all three, except I look chinese because my eyes are so squinty from the sun.
From there we decided to take a trip to Germany!! In this part of Germany, they're famous for chairs. There are chairs everywhere. Valentina and I couldn't figure out why... I guess maybe every other odd thing was taken by other places already...
The Carnaval in Germany:
That night we headed back and ate some good ol' Croatian food. Then I went with Valentina to meet her friend Nicole. We went to the bar at the very top of the tallest building in Basel. The scary part was the bathrooms. The walls of the toilet stalls were made up of the windows on the exterior of the building!!
The next morning I woke up and packed, and then Valentina's dad took me over to where Valentina works. I got to wander around the Feldschlonsschen brewery (yeah try pronouncing that name when your drunk everyone...). The brewery was pretty cool though! It looks like a castle and the inside where the brew the beer is gorgeous!
The next morning I woke up and packed, and then Valentina's dad took me over to where Valentina works. I got to wander around the Feldschlonsschen brewery (yeah try pronouncing that name when your drunk everyone...). The brewery was pretty cool though! It looks like a castle and the inside where the brew the beer is gorgeous!
After wandering around, I met up with Valentina and we did lunch and said our very sad good byes. We did lunch in a small town called Reinfeld, and afterwards I wandered around the old part of town and got some pictures.
I found the round table..
By far my favorite painting on a wall... EVER.
After that I took the train back, packed up my belongings, said my goodbyes to Valentina's mother and her other sister, and headed off to Zurich! Pictures of Zurich to come soon!
Hope you all enjoyed, I have to rush over to my friend Mat's now to meet up with some friends. We're doing pizza night and I'm bringing the cheese.
Love you all back home!
No comments:
Post a Comment