Day 6 - Embarkation Day

 Day 6 – Friday, Mar 27 – Embarkation Day

After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and walked to the Old Town Hall for our Basel Walking Tour with Petra, a graduate student at U Basel with formal training in music and flute. She told us how Basel is much more of a cultural city – museums, arts, music and science (much more so than Zurich which is business and financial). The U Basel is a very strong center for education/science and is one of the oldest in Europe (founded in the 1200’s). Novartis and Roche – two of the largest pharma companies in the world – are both headquartered in Basel. As we walked through town, we went to the bridge that connects Grosse Basel (large Basel) and Kleine Basel (small Basel) on either side of the Rhine. This is the bridge where witches were tried and if convicted thrown into the Rhine. If they floated and survived, then they were acquitted, although they were banished from the city. If they drowned … well that confirmed the verdict. [Note: Novartis is the glistening white buildings in the background as you look down the river.]

 

The Old Town Hall was pretty ornate as the entrance shows in this picture. If you look closely in the arch above the door, there are two mythical creatures that are the symbol of Basel – the Baselisk. Maybe you recognize that J. K. Rowling transformed this into the basilisk from Harry Potter novels. 

Some houses are exceptionally old. We saw many from the 1300-1500’s but this one was th oldest we found – dating from 1270!!!

Of course, the very large church called the Basel Muenster (or monastery) sits on the shores of the Rhine on a hilltop looking over the Rhine and the city. The church celebrated its 1000-year anniversary a few years ago!!! 

 

Buried in the church is the famous 16^th century philosopher and scientist Erasmus [I got a picture to add to my collection with Newton, Galileo, …]. 

Jacob Bernoulli is also buried there, and his commemorative bronze plaque has the bold, large letters - Jacobus Bernoulli, Mathematicus Incomparabilis. I let you do the translation. Bernoulli played a substantial role in developing calculus, logarithms, and probability before dying in 1705.

Our tour meandered through the streets of Basel and some of the side streets, which was neat to see the “off the beaten path” sites.

 

After the tour, we went to the hotel and collected our things and the hotel arranged a van to take all of us down to the river port to board our Viking river cruise ship. We checked in around 1:00pm (1300), but our rooms were not ready, so we went to the on-board restaurant for what was billed as a light welcome lunch. Well, it was a wide variety of foods and plenty of it … and it was delicious. Very fresh salads and other foods from pasta to various meats. Outstanding!

After lunch our rooms were ready and we unpacked. We sat around in the lounge on board (very nice and casual/comfortable), and the boat (or is it a ship?) cruised at 5:00pm (1700). We did not do much walking outside on the open upper deck since it was cool and windy. But we were falling in love with the ship (boat?). It is so much smaller than an ocean cruise ship (that’s a ship for sure), making it so much easier to move around, go to your room and back, etc. The amenities were very good and the staff extremely attentive and helpful.

Dinner was once again excellent – I mean not just good but excellent! There was music and relaxation in the lounge thereafter. We went through 4 locks on the river through the night and we were awake to watch the process at two of the locks. Very fascinating. Lastly, I will note that 10:00pm (2200) is the new midnight.