I love improvised traveling. Yesterday I felt the need to go traveling, and one hour later I sat on the train headed directly to Basel. The twin canton was on my list for my Swiss Challenge, and I had nothing else planned for the evening.

The city of Basel is located on the Rhine, not too far from Dreiländereck (“three-country corner”, where the borders of France, Switzerland and Germany meet).

The weather was quite something. 35 degrees Celsius, at 5 in the afternoon. Don’t want to know what it was around lunchtime…

As I walked from the Rhine to Marktplatz I saw a police squad turn its sirens off, stop the car and exit the vehicle. As  I followed them, hoping to get a photo of policemen in action, they joined up with a number of their collegues. They had circulated a block of houses, apparently watching or guarding something.

As soon as I pulled up the camera the policemen hid behind street signs, walked out of the way or turned their heads away. They seemed slightly agitated of having a photographer nearby, and one of them walked up to me and politely asked “Haben Sie einen Ausweis?”. (Do you have an Ausweis?). The German word Ausweis is ambiguous here and could either mean a license to take photos or identification papers. I answered in English (I always do that when I need a language advantage) “Yes, I have identification”. The policeman then responded “Please don’t take too much [sic] pictures of me” and walked back to his post.

I suspect they were about to arrest somebody, but don’t understand why they were so agitated about me being there. This was a public part in one of the most touristy areas of Basel, and people are carrying cameras in abundance. The officer was polite, yes, but I was a little annoyed about being approached. Good that the Basel police has some manners, in comparison to the London Metropolitan Police.

I waited around for a few minutes, but nothing seemed to happen and I wanted to catch a train that was about to leave. It was time to I make my way to the combined SBB and SNCF train station. It was now after seven in the evening, and thus my Gleis 7 card allowed me unlimited travel by train.

Next stop: Liestal.

The Canton of Basel is a half-canton and consists of the two parts Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landchaft. Basel (the city) is the capital of Basel-Stadt (the canton), whereas the tiny town of Liestal (13’000 inhabitants) is the capital of Basel-Landschaft. This was really a boring place, and big rainclouds were gathering in the sky. I walked around a bit before I crossed a bridge over the Frenke river. Two girls were swimming with their dog and were talking to a friend on the bridge. Seeing that I was a photographer,  they wanted me to take their picture. That photo will have to suffice for the Canton of Basel-Landschaft.

Back at the station, I saw that the S-Bahn to Olten was about to leave. Olten is located in Solothurn, another canton I haven’t been in. Why not? I can take any train for free!

As I arrived in Olten, the ICN express train headed for the canton’s eponymous capital arrived at the platform. Improvising again, I stepped aboard. The ICN trains are the fastest Swiss trains, and I swoosched past the Solothurn landscape in over 200 km/h. (The device in the picture is my GPS logger)

Solothurn

Hm… Wildbachstrasse. That must mean “Forsgatan” in Swedish. My own road!

It was getting late and I could just manage a few minutes in town before the Postauto took me back to the station, where another ICN waited to take me home to Zürich. I didn’t want to get home too late.

Coming back to the student house I saw that people were excited. I asked about the bronze match in the World Cup, and they were all “Yeah we [Germans] won alright, but you should have SEEN the weather!!” I looked around and saw that the yard was filled with tree branches and leaves, and that the lounge had a smell of algae and dirt.

I was told that there had been extreme rainfall and very powerful winds in the evening. It was so bad that rain water flooded the entrances and got into the lounge via the doors and windows. The house is located only 150 cm above the ground water level, and this probably contributed to the flooding. In a few minutes (an Indian friend of mine said “Man, I’ve seen the Indian monsoon, but that was nothing compared to this”) there was almost a decimeter of water in the ground floor and kitchen. The house representatives mobilized with the inhabitants, wielding mops and buckets. It had passed by in about half an hour, but it was quite surreal to come back home and hear about this. I had just seen the clouds in Liestal, but never felt any rain. Guess I was lucky.

Water had also flooded the elevators, so they are temporarily out of order. Grr…

Anyway, with the Gleis 7 card, improvised travelling is both easy and cheap. And the Swiss railway system is, as I’ve said before, awesome. Just go to the station and a take a new route you haven’t seen. Get ready for the adventure.

Time to update my Swiss Challenge stats. Just five cantons left now!

Swiss challenge
Zürich, Bern, Luzern, Uri, Schwyz, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Glarus, Zug, Fribourg, Solothurn, Basel Stadt, Basel Land, Schaffhausen, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Appenzell Innerrhoden, Sankt Gallen, Graubünden, Aargau, Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud, Valais, Neuchâtel, Genève, Jura