The weekend just gone was a quiet one in terms of walking. After the intensity of the previous weekend, you could say that I took it easy. On Sunday, I went back to one of my favourites: a walk around Basel. Even though I have walked the city so many times, I always enjoy it, and since I hadn’t done it for several weeks, it seemed like a good idea.
As always, my walk started at Dreirosenbrucke, or Three Roses Bridge. It is always worth taking a minute to stop and admire the view of the city. And then I went around the corner into Klybeck Strasse. Most times that I do my city walk, I just go straight on from there, but on Sunday I took a detour towards the older part of this district in the city. Basel is not a city of iconic structures. It has no Colosseum. There is no Eifel Tower or Brandenburg Gate. But Basel has thousands of small things to catch the eye of someone who is open to seeing them. The thing that most people soon realise is that the city has lots of fountains. Some are in prominent places, like the Fischmarkt in the city centre, but many are in small side streets. Even after eight years of living here, I am still not sure that I have found them all, and I still delight every time I see one for the first time. So here are just a few as a small taster, with the names of the streets they are in.
The other thing that makes Basel interesting is the doors on some of the buildings. Some of the more prominent buildings have doors that might belong to a prince or wealthy merchant, but there are also some that I should not be surprised if someday I see a hobbit or a wizard emerge there. And there is everything in between.
Even though Basel, and much of life in Switzerland, has an air of constancy, there is also change. It is only a few years since the Roche tower was completed to be the tallest building in the city, and already its windows reflect the cranes building a second tower to be its companion. The Roche tower dominates the city skyline, visible from almost all quarters. We wait for the second tower to see what effect that will have.
And in the city centre right now, the rails of the tram system are being renewed. On Sunday, the old ones have been ripped up, but that is just the start of the work. Right now it means significant disruption to the tram network, so that even a short journey seems like a scenic tour of the city. It will be several weeks before the new rails are laid, and everything will go back to the way it always was, as if nothing had happened. But that is how it is in Basel, and who would have it any other way.
I am quite sure that I will return to the topic of walking in Basel. It is somehow always different, and yet always the same.
And finally the day’s step count: 19,000
Walkingman 