The reason we were in Switzerland was because we had scheduled a river cruise on the Rhine before the week of Christmas. The plan was to end up in the Netherlands to spend the Christmas week with the kids. As we are packing to leave, the rancher begins to regret letting me make the plans. I tend to add a couple of days to the beginning and to the end as a cushion for travel delays or other detours. He says, "how long are we going to be gone?" He knows. He has an itinerary. But he wants to hear me say it and to admit that I have taken his agreement to leave town, and I have run with it. I tell him, "just about 3 weeks." He acts surprised. I just put my head down and keep packing. He pretends to act irritated, but it's the game we play. :)
Since we have been in Switzerland a couple of days, and it is cloudy and overcast both days, we didn't get to see much of the mountains. I suppose we will have to go back. Also, I wanted to open a Swiss bank account, and that didn't happen either. Meaningless, but it sounds cool.
We cab to the train station, and since I have a full day under my belt at train stations in Switzerland, I am now a pro. We purchase tickets to Basel, which is the port that our river cruise leaves from later in the day. Wrestling our luggage, we climb aboard, and above you can see how relaxed the rancher is with me in charge of travel and photography. He is in charge of luggage transport.
We arrive at the boat about two hours early, and of course they are ready. An Alec Baldwin lookalike with a thick German accent checks us in, and we are in the room quickly. Ahhh, the advantages of a small boat. There were almost 200 people on board. My favorite thing to tell people is that we were among the youngest people there. Eventually, I counted five people visibly younger than us. Oops, forgot the Captain of the ship. He was 27. So that makes six. Not a problem, we met lots of very nice people from all over the world, and there is something to be said for conversation with people who are older than you. We enjoyed the company very much, and I would do it again in a minute.
After arriving early and having a quick bite on the ship, we drift back into town for the afternoon since we haven't spent any time in Basel. Like every European city, they have churches and cathedrals in the center of town, and a Christmas market in several different neighborhoods.
My shopping goal when I went to Switzerland was to buy a watch. I considered everything, and I thought even a Swatch would be great. It just didn't happen. I couldn't find any watch that grabbed my attention. But we did find hats. Tons of hats. And scarves. That was what we loaded up on at this first port -- we figured they would be useful for the rest of the journey.
The other souvenirs of the country were a few limited edition Swiss Army knives. I love those little ones with the scissors that pop out. I have a small collection. lol.
Lots of interesting stories about buildings that were damaged in wars, either partially or fully, and how they were restored. You can see by the different kinds of materials and brick used on this church. We were most intrigued with the sundial. Pretty cool.
No emergencies, we just had to spend about 3 minutes pretending there were so we would know what to do. The boat was only a few months old, and we enjoyed everything about it. Bon voyage!
