Jolly Fortress Switzerland

To conclude this leg of the trip, I headed into the rounded hills to the east of the last major port on the Rhine to survey that which I would not conquer this time. I looked over through a canopy of extremely tall trees of a valley of well maintained houses and some how elegant industrial towers and docklands which had been present throughout my journey. The bar man the previous night, in a tavern hidden in an alleyway in the old town of Basel which was adorned with cheerful traditional wooden figures, had told taken the time to give me a picture.

The Rhine at Basel turns sharply east - the elbow - and becomes more interesting in itself. It twists in a treacherous with impressive waterfalls lining the border between Switzerland to the South and Germany to the North. It enters the vast lake at Bodensee before heading through glacial valleys to a crystal clear lake 2500 meters above the sea. Entering that lake is a small stream which becomes so small that you can stop the flow of the Rhine with your foot. At that point you can cast your mind over hundreds of kilometers towards the mouth. To the point that its waters are oozing in a thick organic mass through the cannals of Utrecht, lined by rows of tall thin houses and arching bridges dimly lit by lamps on iron pedestals.

Having been greeted with cheer in the incredibly equipped hostel and waited on with entertaining enthusiasm the night before. I was picked up by an insistent old lady who, with only German, was determined to make sure that I got back to Basel safely and knew all the correct trams to meet. I jumped of the tram in a bustling street and, when peeking into a restaurant, I was greeted with cheers and shouts of welcome, come in and sit down, here have a drink with us.

I sat with three locals who bought me beers while I ate Ross (Horse) steak and chips cooked by an expert Austrian chef. They talked of their lives in Basel, the great social structure, their dependence on the Rhine for work and of their travels in their youth. They also gave my an explanation of why they speak perfect Italian and excellent English rather than French despite the proximity - "You see the french: they make noises like frog, they eat frog, they are frog... We don't like the frog. At school we learn French then after school we unlearn French."

It turns out that they were delighted that someone had stopped in kleine Basel, rather that gross Basel where the tourist attractions are. I thought that gross Basel looked better from the other side anyway, peering over the Rhine with all the boldness of Edinburgh's Royal mile from Princes Street and the colour of Carcasonne. I challenge you to find a jollier nation than the Swiss. I will return one day to learn German the Swiss way and complete the journey to the source.