The Swiss rail card is good value for money and allows unlimited travel throughout an extensive and efficient rail network. From any base there is no part of Switzerland that cannot be visited and returned from in a day using the trains. We based ourselves in Basel on our second visit, aiming to cover some of the ground we missed last time. Details of the earlier trip can be found here.
Outside our flat.
Our rail card allowed us three days of unlimited travel out of our week in a compact but comfortable flat near Basel Bahnhof. On non train days we found plenty to do around Basel following advertised city walks.
There are a lot of open spaces within the city and, on our first day and slightly jaded by the long journey, a short relaxing walk seemed a good idea. during which we passed a horse chestnut, rather strikingly revealing the season.
The Town Hall (or Rathaus) which dominates Marktplatz. This was the starting point of a self guided city walk on the second day.
Munster platz.
Basel Cathedral (or Munster)
The Monastery of St Alban.
Our guided walk crosses the Rhine at the St Alban Ferry. The only motive power for this ferry is the flow of the river. The vessel is attached by cable and bogie to a cable stretched from bank to bank. By manipulating the angle of the boat it is squeezed sideways by the pressure of the water and slides along the cable from one side of the river to the other.
There are no moving parts to this mechanism, save for the bogie that runs along the transverse cable. Not able to go with the current, the vessel is squeezed sideways by the flow of the water. To cross the other way, the attaching cable is moved to the other side of the boat.
This is the other, old fashioned way of crossing the river....
There is a good view of the Munster we had passed earlier from the other side of the river.
Looking down the river towards the Mittlere Rheinbrucke.
This is the Munster Ferry which works on the same principle as the ferry we used.
A promenade stretches for miles on this side of the river.
The Mitlere Rheinbrucke, near the end of the walk.
Looking downstream from the bridge. There is a continuous promenade on this side of the river and clearly, the river is a significant facility in the lives of the people of Basel, especially on a warm and sunny day.
A juxtaposition of old and new Basel.
Back to the Rathaus. The stalls have been cleared from the Markt Platz and it is the end of our walk
On our first rail day we decided to repeat a trip we had most enjoyed on the earlier visit to Switzerland. This was a journey from Chur to Brig through the Oberalp Pass on the Glacier Express. This time we did it the other way round from Brig to Chur and on ordinary trains. Very early in the morning we boarded the Basel-Milan express to find my high opinion of Swiss Rail somewhat under question. What should have been two units coupled together turned out to be only one unit creating a very crowded train and much hullabaloo as pasengers with reservations found their places already occupied. Fortunately we were only going as far as Brig. The other thing of note on the way was a truly magnificent sunrise.
Brig station with the Victoria Hotel, where we stayed the first time, opposite.
Not the Glacier Express!
A square in Chur. It was a rather grey day and the scenery through the Oberalp Pass and on to Chur plus the wonders of the Glacier Express, are much better illustrated here.
Our most spectacular day was a trip up the Jungfraujoch. This involved a second trip on the, this time complete, early morning train to Basel, a change at Spiez, Interlaken, Wengen, Kleine Scheidegg and to the summit. Here, four hours into our day, we await the departure of the 09.07 to Kleine Scheidegg from Wengen. This journey traversed sensational scenery which, with reflections and smears, is not easy to photograph through train windows...
The first shot is typical, but shows also the nature of these narrow gauge winding tracks.
A train from Wengen approaches Kleine Scheidegg
This is Kleine Scheidegg. Trains from Wengen arrive from the left, trains to Grindelwald go off to the right and the little red trains climb to the Jungfraujoch summit at 13641ft.
The Eiger with the infamous North Face to the left..
The Jungfraujoch summit station can be seen in the col to the right of the the peak.
The train reaches the top via a tunnel bored through the mountain. About halfway up is Eigerwand station where passengers may disembark and look out through windows cut into the mountain face. This was the scene of a tragedy in 1936. Four climbers were attempting to scale the then unclimbed North Face and had made a good start when bad weather and an injury to one of the party forced them, on the third day to turn back. Unfortunately they had failed to leave a fixed rope across a notoriously difficult traverse and were stuck. They decided to abseil down. At some point an avalanche struck them. One was swept to his death, two others died suspended on their rope and the last was left hanging but alive not far from the Eigerwand window. Attempts were made to rescue him. The guides even managed to pass him a rope but after a night in the open he was helpless and unable to attach himself to it. The bodies were retrieved a few days later.
The view through the Eigerwand window.
I have climbed to over thirteen thousand feet, but this was slowly on foot and the expedition took three days. The train takes just over an hour to climb to the same height which is probably why I began to feel really ill and could barely move at the top. Moving very slowly, we did manage to spend some time enjoy the views, before retreating to a more congenial altitude. The next twelve images were taken from the summit but I remember very little about them...
After exploring those parts of Jungfraujoch we could access, the plan was to leave the descending train at the glacier station and walk from there across the foot of the North Face to the next station down the line to Grindelwald. However, the lingering affects of altitude sickness and some confusion regarding the location of the glacier station found us back in Kleine Scheidegg from where, after a couple of beers, we decided to take a gentler walk back up towards the snow line.
A mile or so above Kleine Scheidegg we came across a lagoon, reflecting in which was the towering North Face. The scene was approaching overwhelming and much time was spent making repetitive images of it. Our earlier proposed route was difficult to pick out, being well above the snowline initially and there seemed a lot of ups and downs, so we consoled ourselves with the thought that it would have been a tough ask and we would not have enjoyed this view had we attempted it.
After the scenic excesses of our long day to Jungfraujoch, the rest of the week seemed somewhat low key. We had another day enjoying a walk around Basel which included some of the port area and an old commercial district. we also had another long rail trip which took us to Romanshorn a ferry across Lake Constance (Bodensee) to Friedrichschafen on the German side and back to Basel via Schaffhausen and Zurich. The remaining images cover these two days and the journey home.
Landing at Friedrichschafen.
Lunch on the ferry back to Romanshorn.
Glimpses of the Rhine on our way back to Basel.
Complex rail network approaching Zurich.
A final shot on our way home. The Orient Express in preparation at Gare de L'Est Paris. Thoughts of future journeys....