Weinacht im Basel

... Basel am Rhein, our Christmuckah Destination this time. Wensworth invited your truly and Mother Wensworth-Paddlewick to spend the "Weinacht" in the Juras.

Basel am Rhein, from the Wettsteinbrücke, with the Münster in the middle,
and a cable ferry at the bottom

However, our first stop was Wien. As the weather in Mittel-Europe was rather bad, and plenty of Christmas travelers abound, it so happened that we missed our connection to Basel. Fortunately the good people of our transportation company put us up in a nice hotel accross the street, inclusive with delicious supper and a hearty breakfast. Also due to the trasnportation schedules, we gained a half-day in Wien, thus giving me enough time to stroll about a bit. I headed to the museum devotet to Globes, which was nice. The city itself seemed prim & proper, with plenty of horses and carriages.

Later Mother joined me in the Centre, and together we visited the Stephansdom cathedral.

Here is a sketch of it's big organs

We also called on the nearby residence of dear old Herr Mozart, but he was not home. The house was nice, though, and the café downstairs offered some interesting local variant of glühwine that they called Punch. After that, it was time to catch our, hopefully on-time, transport to Basel!

Elizabeth church

Basel is a very charming town, an interesting international mix of ye olde Mittel-Europana and cutting-edge research & architecture. It is a clean city, easy to navigate, with good public transportation and nice scale of proportion. Some (Wensworth et al) might say that it is horrendously expensive, but looking at it from Northern Europe, it wasn't that shocking. But cheap it is not, I'll admit that.

Wensworth & Ms. N.N. have a very nice flat in the very bad part of town. Really - the bad part of town! We indeed had to carry our brollies in the ready to beat down any unruly urchins, ruffians and drug fiends! Other than that, the Swiss were pleasant and polite.

Due to W&N offering us various feasts night after night, we did not get to experience the wonderful flavours of local cusine, which I understand to be mainly all melted cheese and/or chocolate? Nor did we drop in on any local bars, although they told me they have a couple of charming italian pubs in the neighborhood. But perhaps next time!

Gehry's centerpiece for Novartis Campus

The one and only Münster

New and old; the old-town narrow twisting alleys are juxtaposed with gleaming glass and metal of today's biggest Starchitects. This is, after all, the home-town of Messiers Herzog & de Meuron.
And big mesenates such as Novartis and Vitra are not averse to hire big-name architects for their campuses:

H & dM and Gehry at Vitra, on the German side of the border

All said & told, the excursion went well. The towns and the mountains were nice, the weather was (somewhat) permitting (when not foggy & dull). Glühwine was hot & good, the Slaloming glorious the first day, wet & gray the second. Mother Wenswort-Paddlewick enjoyed the city on her own on a couple of occasions. Yours truly did not get to put the metal to the pedal, and so must wait 'till another time for some Mountain-pushbike action.

Meanwhile, keep on keeping on, as they say in the Colonies!!

Tally Ho,
Paddlewick, Society Architecture Correspondent / Push-bike coordinator