It was day 22 of our trip (Sunday the 22nd of December) and today we were in Basel, Switzerland; St Louis, France; and a little bit of Germany. We only had one full day in Basel to explore and do some Swiss Christmas marketing and the weather gods conspired against us (and the illness ones).
Back to French pastries for breaky…..
As we are staying on the French side of the border in St Louis, we have plenty of patisserie options, so Lorraine did an early morning dash to get croissants, tart fromboise and baguette….. and got drenched in the process as it was raining quite heavily.
This was our third Sunday in a row in France (Paris, then Strasbourg and now St Louis) so we had to indulge in some crossiants before a day where we predicted lots of things wouldn’t be open, as is usual in France on Sundays.
The forecast for the day was a top of 9 degrees (getting colder as the day went on) and rain. So we put on our wet weather gear and packed up baguettes for lunch and some snacks so we didn’t have to buy food constantly for the hungry minions. Zinnia was much better today after her very bad day yesterday, but it turned out to be Soren’s day to not be well with the virus that was circulating through all of us. In our packing up for the day we somehow forgot the panadol and hand warmers!
Exploring St Louis
Like Strasbourg, St Louis is in the Alsace region in north-eastern France. The town is right on the border between Germany, Switzerland and France and St Louis is relatively small at only 17 square kilometres and with approximately 23,000 people.
With only one full day in the Basel area, and having seen not a lot the previous afternoon with a sick Zinnia and arriving quite late, we had a list of things we wanted to check out and had worked out a walking route that should take us past most of them. First of all we had a little explore through St Louis and checked out the suburbs on the way to the Tri-point (Dreiländereck). The border between France, Germany and Switzerland.
The suburban area of St Louis was quite pretty but fairly deserted on a Sunday morning. Despite the temperatures actually being above zero today (unlike the Swiss Alps). It was feeling rather cold and windy.
We found some swans on a small river and a Christmas market that looked like it had been packed up for the year. We’d had a quick look through the very busy main markets in Basel the night before and they were on the list for the afternoon, so this one being closed was more surprising than anything.
Three countries in 5 minutes
The tri-point is in the Rhine River, but there is a pedestrian bridge between France and Germany on the other side of the Rhine, and then you walk over another small bridge to Switzerland. As we reached the bridge across the Rhine there were flags flying (and they were definitely flapping in the gusty wind) and not all that many silly tourists (like us) out and about.
The actual tri-point is on an island, mostly filled with rubbish (it’s an industrial area with raw material shipping) as well as a ferry and boat port. The island has cable ferries running to it and is marked by a rocket shaped monument, indicating the point on the map the three countries converge.
It was wet and cold and the cable ferries weren’t running to the island, so much to Soren’s annoyance we didn’t get to stand on the actual spot but did walk between all 3 countries in 5 minutes. A novelty for Australians!
Once we’d head across the 229m long Passerelle des Trois Pays bridge we’d left France and were now in Germany. The bridge is quite striking but it was absolutely freezing walking across there in the wind!
This was as close as we got to the funky looking monument that marks the tripoint. On the German side you can see the rest of the island is rather unattractive and full of rubbish and raw materials. Through Weil-am-Rhein we were definitely on the wrong side of the tracks for a bit as we went through a railway area and there was nothing particularly attractive on this section of the Rhine.
We did fairly quickly located the small pedestrian bridge between Germany and Switzerland that pretty much ran over a drain and were back into Switzerland and Basel.
Back to Basel…..
The walk along the Rhine is meant to be scenic but it was now raining again so we decided to find somewhere to stop for warmth, coffee and toilets.
It appeared everyone in Switzerland had head out to all the open cafes and there was nothing wit seating inside. We sold about 3 kidneys to get some coffee, hot chocolates, and salted caramel cookies with the bonus of a warm toilet……..although we still had to sit outside as it was Sunday and not much is open. As we were having our drinks the rain did stop and the sun briefly came out.
Next on our agenda was finding the miniature city model of Basel ‘Klein Basel’. This should have been fairly close to where we stopped for coffee but our google map had somehow directed us to the suburban area also known as Kleinbasel. We did find some interesting buildings, churches and fountains.
The kids also loved all the buses going to ‘Bad Bahnhof’ like it was a naughty train station 🙂
We found our way back to the Rhine and followed the path along it, in seach of the Klein Basel model.
A freezing downpour….
As we were walking along the Rhine the next downpour hit, we all got drenched and were utterly frozen. The wind was straight in our face and we were wishing it would hurry up and turn to snow as that would be more pleasant.
The downpour was so ferocious that we sheltered under a bridge for awhile waiting for it to slow. It was now 5 degrees but the temperature was below zero. Despite having wet weather gear on the rain had been coming in at an angle so the backs of our legs were soaked as were our gloves.
Everyone was frozen and not all that happy. We really wished we had the hand warmers about now!
We did find the Klein Basel model. As cute as it was, Soren declared it entirely under-whelming which was probably more to do with the miserable state of the weather and him feeling very under the weather.
Next up was a walk across Mittlere Brucke (middle bridge), which had great views across the Rhine and towards the Basel Munster. Despite the rain having stopped it was still freezing! There were some impressive buildings lining both sides of the river and the roof tiles of the Basel Munster were beautiful, even from a distance.
The kids were fading fast and we convinced the kids were were headed to a Christmas market so we could warm up. We had originally planned a few extra stops on our walking route but as we crossed the bridge we were now in the Basel Christmas market area.
The Basel Munster
We had a quick stop at the Basel Munster to check out the cloisters and views from the terrace over the Rhine. Di and Max had done a walking tour through here the previous day and said the views were excellent. By now Soren was very unwell, and needed to sit down somewhere warm so it was a short visit .
These are the faces of sad and cold kids!
Luckily the Munster is adjacent to the Munsterplatz Christmas market so we admired the cold and stormy views for a few minutes and sought some warmth in the market.
Warming up at the Munsterplatz market
I don’t think we were ever so pleased to see a market with shelter and some warm food and drink.
We sold our remaining kidneys for glühwein , apfelpunsch for the kids, and I tried a warm eggnog with whisky and cream. Some potato pancakes with apple sauce were purchased and some feeling came back in our hands (and that was with gloves). The drinks alone (with the mug fees that you do recoup if you return them) was 64 Euros (over $100 AUD). Luckily those drinks tasted good and no one smashed mugs this time!
As we were warming up with our drinks we found Max, Di and Rene, who had been out exploring and also got caught in the same downpour and were equally wet and cold.
Now a little warmer and our spirits lifted a little we did a little explore of the markets. Max was adding to his Santa collection and we spied a few small souvenirs that were tempting. One of the more unusual foods of these Swiss markets were meat skewers with bread-rolls on the end. They looked like impressive weapons too!
Di, Max and Rene declared that even after a glühwein they were cold and calling it quits for the day and heading back to their hotel. We were all off to Innsbruck together the following day. Soren hadn’t really improved much even after some sitting down and a warm drink. Anto took him off to find some meds in a Swiss pharmacy.
We then found the market had a hut with a fire to warm up (although how the kids didn’t end up burnt given how close they wanted to stand was a miracle) where we ate our French baguette in Swiss territory before a bit more market exploring.
More markets at Barfussoplatz
We left the Munsterplatz market and headed to the nearby Barfussoplatz market where we’d briefly walked the night before. We saw plenty of market food involving raclette and fondue including fondue in a roll.
Even though the panadol made Soren feel a bit better he was definitely in need of warm and a rest. He was a sad Soren today! We had enjoyed our wander through the markets but decided to head back to our apartment to get warm and dry.
Back across the border…..
The tram to the Swiss-French border was quite quick. There is an actual inspection point on the border but you can just walk over. In theory they check people coming back into Switzerland after purchasing things that are in much cheaper France (pretty much everything)!
Luckily the walk back from the border to our French St Louis apartment was only a bit over 800m. Despite not getting through all our sightseeing for the day due to sick kids and atrocious weather, we’d still manage to clock up 12km or more of walking and eaten plenty of food.
It was now 3 degrees and were were all soaked so very glad to for some warmth and sitting down. We made the best of the afternoon with hot chocolates and glühwein to warm up. The tart fromboise Lorraine had purchased with the breakfast croissants were also gleefully consumed.
As it was now well after 3pm we thought that was probably the extent of our sightseeing in Basel for this trip. The kids voted for rests and staying warm. The forecast was for dropping temperatures and snow.
We had to do some washing and drying of clothes and the dreaded packing up as this was only a very short stop before our trip to Austria tomorrow for our Innsbruck Christmas.
We’d spied plenty of takeaway places not far from our apartment on this side of the border. Anto went to grab some Turkish at a nearby takeaway place where he got confused again about whether to speak French or German…. we are changing so often. As he was waiting for the food it started snowing…….
After some warm food we watched the snow briefly through the window. We weren’t holding out a lot of hope for it sticking in the morning. Our day of relatively ‘warm’ temperatures had turned out to be freezing so it felt somewhat justified that there was snow at the end of it! It definitely wasn’t one of our best days of trip, in fact all of the kids voted this day one of their least favourite as they felt cold all day. We did get to see a few sights though and maybe one day we’ll get back to Basel for some better sightseeing in the warm.
Up next…..
We depart Basel and Switzerland and head for the the Austrian Alps and Innsbruck for our (hopefully) white Christmas. The very scenic trip there certainly turns on some snowy vistas for us and we find some excellent Christmas markets and plenty more snow.
