Day 60: Aarau to Basel, Switzerland

September 19, 2015

Dodie felt a bit shaky in the night, but she declared herself ready to go in the morning. Our hotel, Sternen, helped out with a full on German breakfast, which not only built up our strength but overfilled our lunch bag. In my list yesterday of hotel names we like (Goldener Lamm, Krone, etc.) I omitted Sternen, which means Stars. We really liked the service, room, and food at this Sternen. However, always crabby (apparently) I took exception with there being only a single star in their hanging sign!

We needed to backtrack into Aarau to get on track, so we headed out through that nondescript cityscape I described yesterday. Soon a lady came up from behind, riding a two wheel recumbent. This turned out to be Suzanne, on her way to the Saturday market. Saturday market? We love markets! So Suzanne guided us in. I noticed one sign as we cycled, indicating 400 m to the Altstadt, yet still our surroundings were very plain, Only when we actually entered the altstadt did things change. In fact it was like switching on a light. Suddenly blah became wow!

Before having a look at what we saw at the market and in the altstadt, a word about Suzanne, and Kathy, and Florian, and Marcus - to name only those whose names we asked. All of these, and others, stopped to ask about our trip, and Kathy and Florian invited us to stay with them if we would stick in town for an extra day!

Kathy Kaufmann met us in the market, and was interested because her daughter, Yolanda, had done a 20,000 km bicycle trip, including a visit to Vancouver Island. The trip also included Florida and Chile, at least! Yolanda now runs a B and B in Lostorf. We bet it is a bicycle friendly one!

At the market, some boy scouts were selling baking to help finance boy scout camp. We bought some of their stuff, which turned out to be excellent. Dodie also distributed a number of Canada flag stickers. So a little later, as we wandered around the old town, Florian Helfrich walked over to us. He had gone to check on how the boy scouts, including his son, were doing, and found them wearing their stickers and talking about the Canadian cyclists. Florian had done a long tour himself - to Thailand, so naturally we had a great chat. Florian is a warm showers host, so we could have stayed with him, if, as mentioned, we had been willing to stay over.

Finally, as we left town, we passed Marcus - commuting in on his e-bike. Marcus too has done some long tours, and for commuting uses the e-bike which he bought some years ago, when the bottom bracket drives were just coming out.

These folks that we have mentioned are just some that made us feel welcome in Aarau. If any others are reading this, thank you all for being so kind.

Back to the market. This consisted of a long line of stalls on either side of a central walkway.There were as usual produce sellers, bakers, butchers, cheese sellers, etc. of all kinds. We noted again the mushroom seller, with so many exotic looking types, and there was also a rabbit butcher. Although we already had a few buns, we could not resist the wood oven bread, and of course, the chance to talk to the youngsters in the scouts.

Look at those mushrooms - especially the ones at the top of the frame

It was not until we left the crowded market that we really could see the altstadt, which was phenomenally beautiful. The relative lack of cars made it easy to imagine that we were back hundreds of years.

Dodie at a chocolate store where I got some gourmet Swiss chocolate

Between talking to everyone and looking all around the altstadt, it was quite late when we finally left town. No problem, we thought, it is just a short and easy cruise down to Basel. The short and easy cruise first took us into some sort of wooded recreation area, which was nice enough, despite a gravel path, but it had long hills that we had to push up. We suspected that Swiss 3 had taken us up there to enjoy a little recreation.

We descended from the recreation area and were back on pavement, assuming that we woud now cruise to Basel. Instead the road began to climb, toward Rohr. "Began to climb" actually means we were mostly pushing. After a fairly long time of this, we took a break in a bus shelter, and ate some yogurt. I pulled out the tablet and replied to an email from son Jeremy, mentioning that we were "halfway up a mountain".

Too bad that assessment was in no way accurate! The road steepened, and switchbacked up and up. It was steep enough as to be just on the edge of my being able to push my heavy bike at all. Dodie did really well, mostly not needing any help to puch her bike. The rain during this time was on and off, so we struggled with getting wet from outside and sweating from inside. We pushed for two hours.

When finally the road headed down, it was a real brake burner! However, it was not all straight down, and there were some real up slopes to deal with too. During the descent the rain got heavier, and we started to be really chilled. Fortunately Dodie found a huge wood/tool storage building with all sorts of dry space. We used this to dry off and to put on some more warm things underneath. That made a huge difference and we carried on very nicely.

Don't throw garbage that the cows might eat

Resting in a bus shelter, only a small way up the mountain, it turns out

Scenes from climbing the mountain near Rohr. You will have to zoom to see the bike I am going back for , way down.

We had no idea what sort of terrain might lie between us an Basel, but it was becoming a worry as to whether our easy cruise would end in one of our classic night rides.

As it turned out, the remainder of the route, while not flat, was reasonable. So we found ourselves in the outskirts of Basel well before dark. We were approaching from the south, unlike our previous visit when we had come from the north. We found the southern outskirts quite pleasant, and in fact quite close in there were attractive townhouses by a stream that was flowing toward the Rhine.

We finally came out onto the Rhine. Arriving at or crossing the Rhine is always a big occasion for us, so we stood for a moment gawking at it. That prompted a couple in a car to stop to ask if they could help us. We thanked them and carried on, just a bit. Then we took the risk of stopping again, to look at a tall tower of sort of interesting design across the river. So a passing lady volunteered that this was the new Roche tower, that it had just opened, and that it housed 3000 workers. The lady said that she had lived along this stretch of river all her life, and did not appreciate the intrusion of such an ugly building. She had heard the architect on radio, claiming that buildings like that are the necessary way of the future. She was not buying this line, and said that then she would rather live in the past.

The lady asked where were spending the night, and maybe another invitation to come home was in the offing. But we were able to say we had a reservation at the Stadthof Hotel downtown, and so we did.

We proceeded toward downtown, but did not get far before a man in a car stopped to tell us we had probably missed our turn. Sure enough, we had. We soon entered the vicinity of the Munster, and found, as with Aarau, that the old town was unique and beautiful. I said to Dodie "I don't want to see too much right now, because then I will never finish the blog, after describing it".

We did take a few shots, and proceeded through a sort of unfamiliar type territory - interesting downtown but not old town, exactly, with lots of stores and restaurants. Our hotel was in the middle of this, and had a very active restaurant scene going on at ground level and also one floor up. We rolled our bikes into a ground floor corridor, and prepared to send me up to the reception, on the first floor. At this point a large, round, loud, and aggressive man appeared and said "No, no, it is impossible to have bikes here. Impossible. Impossible!". "It's just until we check in" we said, "Then they will show us where to store the bikes". "No, no, this is a place for people, not machines, or (sneer) bicycles. It is impossible!!" he replied. Assuming he was from the restaurant, I left him in what I felt would be an equal battle with Dodie, and went upstairs to talk to reception. I had just introduced myself, and indicated that I had a reservation from Booking.com, when the man appeared. It seems he was the general manager. "You must come and deal with the bicycles, then you will register". "When you show me where to put the bicycles, then (and only then) will I put them there" I replied. "Antonio!", the big man snapped, show where to put the bicycles!"

A little man, identical in appearance and demeanor to Manuel in Fawlty Towers appeared and shuffled off with us - down the street, and onto another street. There he unlocked a little door to reveal a storage room. We put our bikes in, taking off the necessary piles of luggage, which now would have to be carried back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, the large man asked when we would be leaving the next day, and we said 7:30. "Impossible!" he exploded, "tomorrow is Sunday, the whole city is closed on Sunday. Nobody will be here until 11." "That does not work for us" said Dodie, "we can not wait around until 11, then we will risk cycling in the dark again". "You should have let us know this requirement" said the big man "then we would have replied that it is (yes...) impossible!".

"But we did", we said "It was our special request to have bicycle storage - on Booking.com". "Booking.com!" the man was apoplectic, "Booking.com is a budget system, you can not expect any special service if you book with booking.com, you should have booked directly with us, then you would know that it is not possible!". "Booking.com is how you can get many customers, and by the way you will not like our review of your service when we post it", said I. "If you want to have a (sneer) bicycle, then there are five hotels at the Train Station for that. There are hundreds of (sneer) bicycles stacked up there".

"Let me handle this", said Dodie, stepping in before me and the big man scratched each other's eyes out. So she negotiated 9 o'clock, with the man predicting instant bankruptcy if he had to pay a staffer to be on hand to release our bikes then from the room down the block.

So, 45 minutes after arriving, we trudged upstairs to our utterly basic room. It's a little bigger than Jail, but not so much. To be fair, the building was constructed in 1295. One big thing, the window looks out on a church, and down below intensely atmospheric trolley cars are sliding by. I went down the corridor to check out the toilet. The door to the 2x4 room was locked. You need your key to gain access to this luxury facility, which is shared among 8 rooms. We can not see what the officious big man had to be so officious about! Well one thing, we had a look at the offerings in the restaurant. Schnitzel is CHF 28. That comes with nothing. If you would like a mixed salad - 12.90. And for dessert - ice cream? CHF 15! We boiled up some soup in our room.

Dodie and the lady who lived by the Rhine here all her life

Active downtown Basel as seen from our window.

Bonus: How Amelia, Evelyn, and Joseph Are Following the Grampies

Sabrina writes:

"The girls wanted to do something "fun." After suggesting a whole bunch of things that got rejected, Amelia said that "doing one of those things in a long dress would be fun." So out came the dirndl's. They wanted the right hair, so I gave them double braids, and then they wanted Joseph to match, so we dressed him in his Hawaii clothes. The girls said that this matched because they were now all wearing clothing from you guys.

And what fun thing did they want to do in long dresses? Ride bikes, of course!"

Evelyn in her dirndl and Joseph in "matching" Hawaiian garb

Amelia displays bike riding in dirndl, in true German/Swiss style

Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 2,760 km (1,714 miles)

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