James Went To Basel

I’m not entirely sure why I decided to go to Basel, it certainly wasn’t on my list of places to visit, unlike say, Lucerne.

Basically I decided to get some trains across Europe for a week, and tick off two new countries – Liechtenstein and Luxembourg. Staying anywhere in Switzerland is like £100+ a night for a half-decent place, but I could stay in Saint-Louis, over the border in France but on the tram lines of Basel, for £70 a night. Sounded like a deal.

Annoyingly it was the first warm and sunny weekend in London for ages, and it was due to rain in Basel. Of course.

I arrived to pouring rain, and duly got soaked on the walk to my Airbnb. Oh well, at least I had a nice view.

Yeah, that’s definitely France.

Time To Get Deported

Basel being so expensive, I decided I should do stuff instead of drinking, not that doing stuff is cheap either. So I hopped on a tram, with what I thought was a bargain price of a ticket, until I questioned my bargain by searching on Reddit and realised that I was 7 stops into a journey on a 4 stop ticket, and that ticket inspectors are apparently quite firm.

I jumped off and walked, not wanting to get deported.

Alas, I made another attempt at getting deported at the Tinguely Museum.

The museum was kinda cool, once I found it, along the banks of the river. I think only £18.00 to get in – many of Basel’s museums are around £40.00 to get in, which is quite sharp compared to London’s £0.00. You could get a Baselcard which entitled you to half-price entry…if you stayed in Basel. I was staying in Saint-Louis…technically not Basel, so I couldn’t take advantage.

Anyway, the Tinguely Museum had these contraptions which went off every so often which were an elaborate series of wheels, pulleys, etc that would then play a drum, or something. Kinda cool.

Until I went upstairs, and one of the gallery people told me to turn the handle on one. So I turned what I thought was a handle…but was part of the artwork. Was, and no longer is. “What are you doing”, he exclaimed. I explained that I was turning the handle, but actually though it looked kind of like a handle, it very much wasn’t. I’d broken the sculpture.

The head of security arrived, took me downstairs, I explained what happened – after a little while he told me someone else did something similar the week before, I asked if they were in jail, and he laughed. I think that broke the mood, he took my details and let me go.

It was an inauspicious start to my European train adventure.

I then walked 40 minutes to what I thought was a cool craft beer place, but was some kind of neighbourhood bar in a block of flats – but I did actually get a good beer. For £11.20, or some ridiculous price. At least it had stopped raining, though it was pretty chilly for late June.

Eating In Basel

Eating out in Basel was a mixed experience. I eschewed the idea of booking any normal restaurants, as that would entail £40+ main courses, and I had 7 days of adventure to come. Plus, if I was going to eat at good restaurants, better to do so in France later on my trip, than pay double in Switzerland.

The first night was the worst – having wandered around trying to find something for less than £20.00, I found somewhere selling chicken burgers for £18.00 and there was a vibe in the area from Portugal vs Turkey being on, with plenty of Turkish fans around (though it wasn’t a joyful vibe at 3-0 down).

Alas, as you can probably tell, the chicken burger was pretty crap, and the sweet potato fries well over-cooked. Sriracha sauce was banging though. Oh, and the sweet potato fries cost another £7.00, then including the beer I’d spent nearly £35.00. Hmmm.

I actually had a really good roast dinner, at Paddy Reillys.

You can read more about it on an international roast dinner blog that you may know about.

On my last night in Basel, I went to Fischerstube, which did more traditional meals, so I ordered the pork knuckle with sauerkraut and potato salad. The cold potato salad was a bit too much of a juxtaposition against the warming pork, cooked in beer – I enjoyed it but it was nothing to rave about.

And I did only eat out once a day, because, yes, Basel is expensive.

Beers In Basel

I had more success with beer in Basel than I did food, though I tried not to drink too much at around £10.00 a pint.

Apart from the aforementioned beer at Matt and Ellys, I also had a more traditional beer at Ueli-Brau-Bar, which is next door to Fischerstube – and I guess they are the same business, as the beer is also served there.

The only other place I had a really good beer at was Bierrevier, which is inside a food hall called Markthalle, and I had a damn excellent modern IPA there, though at around £10.00 a can I only allowed myself one visit. Well, I went back a second time the next night, but it wasn’t open.

I don’t recall having a crap beer in Basel. Crap food, yes, expensive beer, yes.

Other Things To Do In Basel

The most impressive thing I did in Basel was visit the Fondation Beyeler art museum – I love a bit of kunst. Apparently it is the most visited art museum in Switzerland – perhaps the others might also consider reducing their prices to a slightly less unreasonable £25.00.

The whole building was pretty much an exhibition in itself. Arriving to the building shrouded in fog, I could see barely a metre in front of me as I slowly edged towards the entrance, trying to avoid those who suddenly appeared in front of me.

That was how to have your art gallery entrance.

Inside, I walked through a gallery of contradicting faces, and then I could hear some strange noises that weren’t part of the minimal techno playing through my earphones. The kind of weird animal noises, bleeps and shrieks that I might make after a few beers (or sometimes zero beers).

I realised this was coming from a woman in the next room – and eventually realised that all these weird noises were something like Beethoven, and there were occasionally more than one person doing it. Weird, in a good way, and totally charming.

It might actually have been worth the money. Plus it was a nice hour long walk along the river, and through a forest to get there.

The other thing I did was walk through Holzpark Klybeck, which was a walk through an industrial area which was now populated by those seeking an alternative lifestyle, and had lots of quirky ramshackle buildings, graffiti, bars and I think theatre performance spaces – but it was Sunday afternoon and only one bar was open.

This would have been better to do on Saturday night, I assume, but I didn’t realise it was a thing until Sunday afternoon. I did also manage to get a beer for around London prices.

Get Out Of Basel

Of course, the main reason I chose Basel in the first place was for the excellent train links.

On the final day, I took the train to Liechtenstein – well, I took the train to Sargans, then a bus to Vaduz. The scenery from the train is stunning – some snow still remained at the peaks in late June, and the blue waters of the lakes were mesmerising. This is why I love Switzerland.

One of the few good deals in Switzerland is that you can get an all day anywhere train pass, for relatively decent prices – depending on how far in advance you book, and I managed to get one for £56.11, which took me to Sargans and back, via Zurich, I could have got off elsewhere, and it included trams in Basel.

Zurich is just an hour from Basel, Interlaken (which looks stunning) is 2 hours, Lucerne (likewise stunning) an hour, Strasbourg, my next destination on my journey, just over an hour.

Get Into Basel

It’s quite possible that I’ll go back to Basel airport, as flights are cheap, and as I mentioned, it is quite a good base to connect to places like Strasbourg, or the rest of Switzerland.

And Basel is quite excellent for art galleries and museums – alas, I could only budget for two of the cheaper options. So there are reasons to go here, and I think if you dig under, there is a kinda cool city here – but it is really trying not to be cool.

Everything was very orderly – the tram system was excellent, and ran on time. The city was safe and clean to walk around, some of it was very pretty too. The river was clean (mountain water), the forests were green – and it was a great city for walking in, and I assume, cycling. You could live a very nice, orderly, peaceful life in Basel.

There seemed to be nobody homeless, though at the same time there was also nobody out of Basel’s character – no punks, no goths, no hot women – everyone kind of dressed the same in 1980’s M&S clothing.

I also liked Basel’s little hidden artistic touches. I was almost charmed by time I left to go to Strasbourg. Basel is not my favourite city ever, I rank it marginally above Zurich, but nowhere near, say, Vienna. Then it was time to move onto Strasbourg…