The reason for our visit

Not exactly a concert, rather more than a rehearsal - we were here to listen to the two Piano Quartets by Raff, played by Il Trittico, who played the Piano Quintet on a memorable Sunday afternoon in Rapperswil three years ago. The performance in the Kleiner Saal at the Basel Hochschule für Musik was great - for a more comprehensive review, keep an eye open here.

Basel Münster

High above the river, in a site well suited for overseeing all the comings and goings, is the Minster, or Münster. Walking towards it through the small streets and alleys, we found it hard to imagine that we were in the city. The blue skies and sunshine made it a pleasure to linger in the tree covered courtyard and do a bit of people watching!

Unbelievably, we had driven this route on Sunday afternoon, when we were being challenged by the one-way system of the old town - and yes, we drove through streets which we really shouldn't have done!

Inside the minster, the solid architecture is plain and simple. Here and there is a tomb or memorial - one of the tombs is that of Erasmus, and though there are three lovely stained glass windows, my eyes fell on the wonderful chairs which had such a great assortment of patterns carved into the backs.
 
Yes, we spotted some pairs but not many, and what a distraction peering at them would prove during a boring sermon!

Outside, into the cloister, where we enjoyed walking around looking through the openings for different views and glimpses through other windows. The many memorials on the walls were fascinating too.

In the corner of the smaller cloister, we came across this great bronze market stall.

There were some pretty realistic fruit, veg and flowers there and the cool, dark, shiny surfaces were so pleasing to the eye and to the touch.

Only on wandering over to the other side, to see another, similar stall, did we note the more sinister side of the artist's concept, for here the stall was empty and a human skull was there on top of a silent drum. The surface of the table was imprinted with a lengthy poem, the language too dense and difficult for me to understand, sadly.

So, out onto the Pfalz, where instead of the usual figures there are elephants carved into the stone. Well, we think they are elephants as imagined by someone who has never actually seen an elephant!

Then, as we headed back into town in search of tea, we spotted this on the church notice board.

It seemed to sum up everything we love about Switzerland, this somewhat conventional country of tradition and good sense, which nevertheless embraces the modern technology with style and functionality. "Mit Pfiff", as they say!

Bright pink, hot yellow, orange and RED!

Once we'd enjoyed our little trip across the river, we headed for our main destination today - the Vitra Design Museum, just over the border in Germany. Staying at a Basel city centre hotel meant that we were given free travelcards, valid on the buses and trams, so we haven't used the car once in the last couple of days. What an enlightened approach!

The building itself is by Frank Gehry, clearly before the metal cladding took hold. The design resulted in an interesting layout inside, though the place was smaller than we imagined from the hype.

Though there were large groups of students gathering at half hourly intervals, we managed to time our visit to avoid them all and had the place more or less to ourselves. The subject of the special exhibition, "Living under a Crescent moon" was more than apt for us, however, and we enjoyed seeing exhibits of places familiar to us from our recent trip.

No photographs inside, sadly, but the bright colours of the exhibit were fantastic - those hot pinks, yellows and oranges just lifted the spirit from the rather grey day outside.

By the time we came outside and walked back to the bus stop, the whole place looked more cheerful - indeed, almost storybook-like!

We headed back into the Old Town then, to explore the small streets and the Münster but on the way, we were diverted into the Ethnographic Museum by another special exhibit - Red

For obvious reasons, there's always a lot of red about in Switzerland, but there's more than ever right now, because football is high on the agenda with the European Cup starting here next month.

We stepped inside the museum, up the red carpet and totally ignoring the red stop sign, through an entrance built as a huge beating heart.

This was an amazing exhibit, the only problem being that the atmosphere inside the museum was so oppressive on the warm afternoon, we found it hard to keep going! But the exhibits were remarkable and beautifully displayed in great light.

 

 

In particular I loved the small breverl or talisman, something I've not come across before and must find out more about. I also found the textile exhibit fascinating - hardly surprising, that - not only for the red dyes, garments and cloths, but also for the more permanent display of textile constructions. I made sure I noted the title of an interesting book on the subject which I will track down sometimes soon.

 

 

Again, no photos, but the website images are better than any I could have taken!

 

I think the Münster is worthy of another blog post all of its own!

 

The Basel Ferries

We knew nothing about these little boats until we spotted one of them just outside our window and watched it as it went to and fro across the river all day. Looking at a map, we spotted four of them, small, frequent and as well-patronised as the traghetti of Venice, they are attached to an overhead cable - just as well bearing in mind the strength of the current downstream. But then we read more about these "Basel anachronisms" and discovered there's more to them than meets the eye!

Powered across the river simply by the flow of water, the ingenuity of the system is just brilliant. We had to try it for ourselves, so this morning, we set off downstairs and along the river bank a couple of hundred metres and stepped on board. At CHF 1.60 per person, this was a bargain ride.

As we arrived at the jetty, the little boat was on the opposite bank for the river, but no sooner had the ferryman spotted us, than he was heading over in our direction. We were the only two passengers on this occasion, but except for seeing us on board safely, sliding the rudder into the opposite direction and giving the boat a push off, there was nothing for the "Faehrimaa" to do. As we crossed the river, we enjoyed the little rhyme in Schwyzertuetsch - especially with the little mention of the "Faehrifrauen" too!  
(If my command of Schwyzertuetsch was rather better, I'd attempt a translation, but suffice to say, be patient and hang on tight!)
  

So, with the boat angled at 45 degrees to the flow of the river, we were gently pushed to the other side where the ferryman of the Vogel Griff could follow us up the wooden jetty and resume his coffee break!

A day of culture

Have you guessed where we are yet?

A clue - the red sandstone City Hall dominates the market place and has the most wonderful painted walls in a small courtyard. We spent quite some time there this morning as we walked around the Old Town in the spring sunshine. The weather forecast was none too good for later so we tried to make the best of the day.

We pottered around one or two shops along the way, amused by the sight of this book, a German version of the one being chatted about by some friends in the last couple of days!


This statue of Helvetia will settle any doubts about this favourite of ours. We love the way she's resting her shield and spear, putting down her suitcase and making the decision to go no further!

After a morning walking around, we too were feeling a little footsore, so around lunchtime, we hopped aboard a tram and headed to the Fondation Beyeler

Reminiscent of the Burrell Collection, situated in parkland with large plate glass windows, this is a fantastic gallery of modern art. Sadly no photographs allowed inside, but you can imagine the wealth of treasures inside by Picasso, Mondrian, Van Gogh, Monet, Rothko, Kandinsky,
Giacometti...the list goes on. The special exhibition on right now is of Action Painting - with several pieces by Jackson Pollock amongst other artists of whom we'd never heard. All used some kind of energetic way of creating their art and the results were....well, "interesting"...It's worth following the link from the main Beyeler website to find out more about this fascinating show.

Back into town then, to buy sock yarn and other essentials - and of course, you've worked it out by now, haven't you? We're in Basel, Switzerland, and very nice it is too!