24 hours in Basel

My most recent business trip took me, together with a colleague, to Basel, in Switzerland, close to the border with France and Germany. I had already been once in Basel, but just for a few hours, when I was doing a course of French in Strasbourg. In this case, I took the train, as then I was free to carry any amount of liquid and I do not need to get naked before entering the train. Morever, the trip is really nice and comfortable.Our train was leaving with some delay but we were lucky enough to be able to catch the previous train to Basel, which was also delayed; what meant that finally we only had a delay of ten minutes. Upon arrival to the station, we took a tram to our hotel. This is one of the most remarkable characteristics of Basel: it has a dense and extremely good network of trams.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were surprised by the fact that the restaurant was closing in 30 minutes (it was merely 20:30), so we had to hurry up for getting some food. That dinner showed me two other characteristics of Basel: there is not much movement after 21:00 and prices are extremely high there.

The next day, after our meeting, we had time to walk a little bit through the city centre. During that walk, we arrived to a small square with a fountain in it, where we found two ducks (see picture to the left): how the hell did those ducks find that fountain? Anyway, leaving aside questions with no answer, Basel has some very cosy streets but I somehow find the city a bit dirty for Swiss standards. One can also feel the wealth surrounding everything.

To sum up, after my second and short stay there, I could say that Basel, situated in the corner between Switzerland, France and Germany, seems to be a very nice city to live, despite its high prices (most probably wages are also high) and some quietness at nights.