This morning proved to be very hectic. The last stop for the ship was Basel, Switzerland and everyone had to be out of the staterooms by 8 am. That meant luggage had to be outside the door by 6:30 so the staff could load it on the bus that would take us to our destination. I got a glimpse of the complexity of running a cruise ship like this when they run trips from March through November.
We had our last breakfast onboard, then we had to wait until 9:30 to get on the bus that would drop us off on our Basel tour.
Basel and Switzerland flags
This tour was a quick one--only a few hours. It was rainy too, so not the best time to do one but Switzerland in March is unpredictable. A couple of times I heard, "There is no bad weather, just bad clothing choices."
Some views from the bus:
View of the Rhine
Strassburger Memorial. It was designed by Frédéric Bartholdi, the man who designed the Statue of Liberty.
View of Basel. Those two towers are the headquarters of Roche Pharmaceuticals, which was involved in developing COVID treatments and testing kits.
The first stop was--again--a cathedral, the Basel Münster. It was originally a Catholic cathedral, but is now a Reformed Protestant church.
Front of the church
Church cloister
I thought this was weird, so of course there's a photo. Don't know what it is.
Basel Street View
This was the house/business of a trader who dealt with the Venetians. You can tell that by the winged lion above the door, which was the symbol of Venice. The steps beside it are to help a riders get on the horse.
This was lunch for Fe at a place called Sprüngli. Like the Austrians, the Swiss serve their coffee with water. Plus, this place had the best chocolate I've tasted. Ever.
Like I said earlier, this tour was a short one. Too bad, because Basel looked like it had a lot to see--much more than we had a chance to. But since Zurich was about 88 km (55 mi) away, we had to go.
After a rainy ride, we made it to Zurich and our hotel. It was the Sheraton Hotel and while it was not in as good a location as our Paris hotel was, it was right beside a tram stop, which I will be talking about later.
Outside the hotel with the Anne-Sophie statue in the foreground
Today's activities were somewhat limited by the poor weather. Besides the tram stop mentioned earlier, this place also was across the street from a Swiss grocery store, Migros. Naturally, I stopped in and got some sandwiches and snacks for dinner.
Our room in the hotel. It was far more spacious than the stateroom we were living in all week.
Viking Joke #12: What did the four-man Viking disco group call themselves? The pillage people.
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