Hi everyone! Today is a holiday in Switzerland and Germany, but it’s also a Saturday so we don’t even get a day off work for it, just an entire weekend with closed supermarkets and not being able to hoover… so kind of like two Sundays in a row. Rude! Anyway, I am here to bring you February’s photo an hour – and yes I am aware that it’s now May. I’m a bit behind, okay? Anyway, here’s what I got up to on 20th February.
10 a.m. Starting the day with a cuppa, as always.
11 a.m. Cross stitch. Working on a sweet sixteen card for a girl from Post Pals.
12 noon. Making the finished cross stitch into a card.
1 p.m. Time for a shower. On Instagram, I hashtagged this with “Who is the laziest of them all?” but given that Jan wasn’t even out of bed yet I’m going with not me 😉
2 p.m. Preparing to go for my weekly walk – these books are destined for a free public bookcase.
3 p.m. Town. Waiting for the people browsing the bookcase to leave so I can deposit mine. The photo shows the Wettsteinplatz bus/tram stop. (Look how blue the sky was! It’s chucking down today and I’m wondering whether to go for a soggy walk this week or hope for better whether tomorrow.)
4 p.m. After walking back home it was time for another cuppa.
5 p.m. Time to stick on some washing.
6 p.m. Starting to cook tea.
7 p.m. Lasagne in the oven! The washing machine also started beeping at that exact second, but luckily Jan went to sort that out.
8 p.m. On to my second helping of food!
9 p.m. I wasn’t interested in the film Jan was watching so I brought my book to the bedroom.
10 p.m. Got into my pyjamas… plus some fluffy socks.
11 p.m. Getting ready for bed. Face cream and teeth brushing.
So that was February’s… stay tuned for March and April. I bet you can hardly contain your excitement ;-).
Every year since we moved to Basel I’ve gone for a walk at the end of October and taken photos of the autumn colours. The second year, it was pure coincidence that I took the photos on almost the same date, but since then I’ve done it on purpose…. what can I say, I like the direct comparison. This year I had to overcome a certain amount of reluctance to leave the house since it’s been raining for days*, but I gave myself a stern talking to (along the lines of “it’s only water” and “skin’s waterproof”), put on my raincoat and got out there.
(* I hope everyone who’s been wishing for this weather since mid-August is currently out stomping in puddles and singing in the rain… I would like to think that somebody is enjoying the fact that my time off work has been a complete washout so far!)
Anyway, enough rambling – here are this year’s (rather soggy) photos.
This year the trees are all either already bare or still green, with the occasional splash of yellow or brown here and there. None of the vivid reds and oranges I found in previous years. Also, apologies for any blurry spots on these photos – my lens got wet!
And now here’s the comparison of the same date on all five years (sadly not all the exact same stretch of path, but you get the idea).
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
The 2017 and 2019 photos are in basically the same place, so that’s nice. There’s definitely more green in the background this time! Hopefully next year I’ll be able to get out there again and continue the experiment.
Hello friends! Saturday was the chosen date for August’s photo an hour, hosted by Jane and Louisa. Jan’s mum and her partner were on their annual holiday to Ãœberlingen on Lake Constance, which isn’t too far from us, so they came down for the day. Here’s what we got up to.
9 a.m. The day always has to start with tea!
10 a.m. I had a shower and got dressed. Wearing one of the birthday presents I bought myself. Toucans!
11 a.m. Some last-minute hoovering before people arrive.
12 noon. Our visitors came bearing gifts.
1 p.m. (ish… I took the photo slightly late). After a tour of our renovated rooms, we headed into town.
2 p.m. Lunch! Kohlmanns is one of our favourite places.
3 p.m. After lunch coffee.
I forgot to take a 4 p.m. photo!
5 p.m. We crossed the river then stopped for a beer.
6 p.m. Taking our visitors back to the train station. This is the Clara church. Look how blue the sky is!
7 p.m. Waiting for Jan to fetch some water.
8 p.m. Decided to get some good. These are potato momos and they were delicious!
9 p.m. Back home and chilling on the couch… since I have no pets I took a photo of an owl cushion.
And that’s all I’ve got for you. At 10 p.m. we were in bed listening to an episode of Good Omens. I hope you all had a great Saturday. Tell me what you got up to.
Have a fantastic day/evening/whatever it is when you read this.
Hello friends! I took part in A Photo an Hour with Louise and Jane on Saturday and now I’m finally getting round to writing my blog post. It was one of those rare occasions on which I was actually doing something so 90% of my photos don’t consist of housework and the view from my couch. Hurrah! Let’s take a look at what I did, shall we?
9 a.m. Starting the day with a cuppa, as always.
10 a.m. Showered, now to decide what to wear.
11 a.m. Buying a train ticket while Jan’s in the shower.
12 noon. On a train, about to leave Basel.
1 p.m. Train coffee!
2 p.m. Still on the train, passing Lake Thun.
3 p.m. We changed to a regional train at Interlaken Ost. Photo from somewhere near Brienz.
4 p.m. After three hours on the train we discovered that our detination – the Aare Gorge – was closed. Plan B: cable car up the Hasliberg.
5 p.m. After walking around the village on the mountain for a bit, we’re back in the cable car waiting to head down again.
6 p.m. Reading a book, waiting for the train to leave Meiringen.
7 p.m. On another train, stopped at Thun station.
8 p.m. Still on the train. At least I’ve had plenty of time to read my book!
9 p.m. On the tram home after stopping off to buy a few bits.
10 p.m. Food! There were scrambled eggs as well but I had eaten them all by photo time.
After taking the final photo, I finished my dinner, read the last few pages of the book (in time to return it to the friend who lent it to me the following day) and was in bed before 11.
Next photo an hour is on Saturday, 27th April 2019 if anyone feels like joining in. Simply take one photo every hour and post to Twitter or Instagram using the #photoanhour hash tag or save your photos and write a blog post afterwards.
Hello lovely readers! On Saturday, I took part in the first photo an hour day of 2019 via Twitter, and now I’m finally getting round to also posting the photos on my blog. So here’s what I got up to.
10 a.m. Out of bed and wearing my new slippers. Very cosy they are too!
11 a.m. Aww, my tea mug loves me.
12 noon. Made it to the post office to pick up a package before it closed, now doing a bit of shopping.
1 p.m. “Helping” Jan make the office light work… which at that point manly involved watching and waiting (my main job was to hold the light up in the air while he attached it to the ceiling).
2 p.m. We wanted to go out since it was actually sunny so I started looking up places to go.
3 p.m. Finally on the move!
4 p.m. Emmental! We reached our destination not long after that photo.
5 p.m. Back in the car heading closer to the mountains. We were in Burgdorf, if you’re wondering.
6 p.m. Still in the car. It’s hard to take photos in the dark!
7 p.m. Almost back in Basel.
8 p.m. Fooood! Leftovers from the night before plus some refried beans from a tin. It tasted nicer than it looks 😉 (Inside the tortilla was chicken, avocado, tomatoes, cheese and lots of garlic).
9 p.m. Making us both hot drinks.
10 p.m. Reading in bed.
11 p.m. It’s good night from Eeyore (and good night from me).
And that was all from that day. If it had been up to me, we would have gone out sooner and had time to stop off somewhere else before it got dark, but Jan wanted to get the light sorted, which is legitimate.
I seem to have neglected my travel posts in 2018… by which I mean I think I wrote about maybe two of our trips? We didn’t have a proper holiday (well, Jan did – 10 days travelling to Vienna, Sofia, Belgrade and Istanbul with his choir), but we did manage a few days out and weekends away. So before I entirely forget what we actually did this last year (almost forgot!), I thought I would write a round-up post of all our travels…
We started the year in Geneva, where we got very wet watching the New Year’s fireworks! We had arrived there on 29th December (I think) and left in the evening on 1st January. There was a festival of lights happening, which was nice, and we had a lovely walk around the lake, where we saw a woodpecker (which I didn’t manage to photograph), several robins and lots of different duck species, but overall I wasn’t that impressed with Geneva. It seemed dirty and despite not being particularly huge felt kind of like a large city, with lots of traffic going right through the centre. I much prefer Basel, as provincial as some may find it!
Lights in Geneva
One Saturday in February we decided to head to Aarau, since it’s close by and we had never been. We discovered a cute little town where the undersides of the roof eaves are beautifully painted.
Later in February, we headed to Dijon for a weekend. The Sunday happened to be photo an hour day, so miraculously I actually posted about part of that trip! Dijon is quite a charming city but a lot of the old buildings could use some renovation. Best known for its mustard, the Dijon region is also the home of Kir Рa French cocktail made with a measure of cr̬me de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) topped up with white wine (Kir Royal uses champagne) Рand, being in Burgundy, Boeuf Bourguignon and Coq au Vin. Those two dishes are what Jan and I ate on the evening we spent there and both were delicious.
We didn’t actually go anywhere in March… or at least I didn’t – Jan left for his trip at the end of the month. But on Easter Monday, which fell on 2nd April in 2018, I took a tram to the nearby town of Aesch and walked up to some castle ruins above the town. It was a cloudy day, but I still had a great view of Basel from the top.
At the end of the month, when Jan was back, we decided to go up to St Chrischona. Once again, it happened to be a photo an hour day, so I actually have a post about our walk!
At the beginning of May, we drove down to just outside Munich for my cousin’s confirmation. On the way, we stopped for lunch in Bregenz, Austria and the day after the confirmation we went to Partnach Gorge near Garmisch-Patenkirchen with my uncle who lives near Munich plus my aunt and uncle who came over from England for the confirmation.
We also did the 24 stops walk in May, which is a sculpture path between Switzerland and Germany.
One of the 24 Stops sculptures
On 26th May, Jan got a car and we drove to the Trümmelbachfälle – a group of ten glacier-fed mountains inside a mountain. On the way back we stopped in Spiez to see it in the light, since the last time we were there it had been night time.
At the very end of May, we flew to England for a few days because we had been invited to a wedding on 2nd June. On the last day of May, we went out for the day with my mum and brother, first taking a walk around the lake at Druridge Bay, before stopping in Warkworth for lunch and finally visiting the beach at Amble. I my have lived abroad for most of my adult life, but I will always have a special place in my heart for Northumberland’s breathtaking beauty.
Later in the month, we took a day trip to Wasserfallen, where we took a cable car up a mountain, walked around and saw some people returning from llama trekking. No photos from there because I appear not to have them on the computer! Then on the weekend of 30th June/1st July, we had a mini-break on Lake Lucerne. We stayed in Vitznau, directly on the lake, and the next day took the cable car from Vitznau up to the Wissifluh – part of Rigi – before driving down to Stans to head up the Stanserhorn. On both mountains, we saw lots of butterflies.
I was actually pregnant at that point but had no idea.
The following weekend, we spontaneously decided to drive to the French-speaking part of Switzerland, specifically to St Ursanne, then later headed on to Neuchâtel where we ate dinner.
August was my birthday month but didn’t involve any travel for me – although Jan had a rehearsal weekend with his choir. But in September my mum, her friend and my brother came to visit and on one of the days we went to Mount Rigi and Lucerne for the day with our visitors. We got cheap deal day tickets and took ordinary trains, cogwheel trains and a boat. It was a long day but really nice. (Those last two sentences are copied directly from the draft post of my September recap, which was all written and just waiting for me to add photos. I never ended up posting it because the day before it would have gone up was the day I lost the twins and the post included pregnancy talk).
We didn’t do much travelling in October, for obvious reasons, but eight days after I was released from hospital we went to France, first stopping in the fortified town of Neuf-Brisach and then visiting Riquewihr, which was absolutely gorgeous but also absolutely packed full of tourists. Although I was still slightly weak from lack of iron, it was a much needed day out.
in November we wanted to get away from it all and went to Yverdon les Bains for a weekend. We ate delicious food, walked a lot and toured the castle. Back in Basel, after a meeting at the town council with the person responsible for bereavement, we got a car and drove part-way up a mountain then walked the Geissflue circular route. It was a beautiful day and the autumn colours were stunning!
Yverdon Castle
On the Geissflue
At the end of November, while Jan was in the US, my mum and sister visited and we took a brief trip to Freiburg im Breisgau to see the Christmas market.
December was an incredibly busy month between Jan’s choir concerts and Christmas, but we did manage one day trip… on Boxing Day we drove to Murten – a small medieval town near Fribourg. It was cloudy and cold but we still had a walk around the town and along part of the wall before heading into a pub for some food.
And that concludes 2018’s travels. Despite all the ups and downs of the year, we actually managed to fit quite a lot in. There was only one month without any travel at all! We spent New Year at home this time, but I am hoping to kick off this year’s travels with a trip out to somewhere tomorrow. And beyond that? We have no plans as yet, but I am hoping for a proper holiday in 2019. Stay tuned!
Since we moved to Switzerland, I’ve gone out and taken photos along the same little stream at the same time every year. The first two times, it was a coincidence… I just happened to take photos of that particular walk on the same date both times. Last year it was on purpose, although I was a day out with the date. This year, I decided to do it again… having forgotten that I got the date wrong last year I again went out on 31st October. It was a far better day for a walk than the 30th though – although it was still grey and cold, it was the first time all week that it wasn’t absolutely chucking down!
The first year we lived here, I felt compelled to take photos because everything was so gloriously orange. This year, after a very dry summer, lots of the trees seemed to give up early, their colours fading and their leaves shrivelling and turning brown – some of them had even lost their leaves before autumn officially rolled around. I swear the tree by our balcony has been yellow and half bare for about 2 months! Then autumn dawned like a slightly cooler summer so that those trees that had hung on to their leaves thus far didn’t realise the season had actually changed and are either still green even now or just beginning to change. So what we’re left with is a slightly odd mix of bare branches, dry brown leaves, and bursts of red and yellow amongst otherwise fully green trees. But that’s enough waffling from me… take a look for yourselves:
Finally, here’s one photo from each of the four years. Sadly not taken in the exact same place, but I think it gives you an idea of the differences in colours. Hopefully I’ll be able to continue the experiment next year!
Around this time last year, I went for a walk along a stream near where I live. A year before that I had walked along the same stream and taken photos of the gorgeous autumn colours. It was only afterwards that I realised the photos had been taken on the same day. This year I wanted to take photos on the same day again, but unfortunately I misremembered the date and thought the others had been taken on 31st October. Actually, it was the 30th. Oh well…one day out is basically the same, right?
The trees have been weird this year with some of them changing from green to yellow then brown and finally losing most of their leaves all within a single weekend (a few weeks ago) while others are still looking very green even now. Two years ago I’m sure all the trees were red and yellow and orange at this stage? Anyway, here are some photos of this year’s autumn walk.
Leaving the house immediately proved worth it when I saw this guy mere minutes into my walk:
As you can see, it was an absolutely glorious day for a walk. Hard to believe it had been freezing cold and rainy just two days earlier!
And finally, here’s a comparison of this year with the autumns of the past two years:
2015
2016
2017
From left to right, the end of October 2015, 2016 and 2017. Unfortunately the photos weren’t taken in the exact same place/direction, but they are very close together and you definitely get an idea of how different the colours have been at the exact same time of year! I actually think last year was even greener… this year’s photo looks more yellow, while 2015 had all the orange. Now let’s hope we’re still here at this time next year so I can see what the colours are doing then!
Hello my lovelies! It’s been a whole week since I last posted (and almost as long since I came to visit anyone else’s blog. Sorry about that… I will be over soon!). Visitors, work and card making have conspired to keep me away from this little space of mine! But now I’m back with a post about a visit to an art gallery, which counted for November in Take 12 Trips. That means I’m actually caught up with Take 12 Trips posts since I haven’t actually taken my December trip yet!
Outside the Fondation Beyeler building
At the beginning of November, a friend came to visit us because he wanted to go to an art exhibition in Basel… or rather in Riehen, a neighbouring town. The exhibition is actually still on at Fondation Beyerler until 22 January and it’s all about the artists Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, and an almanac they wanted to produce called “Der Blaue Reiter” (The Blue Rider), which would collect together artwork and writings from various artists. It was supposed to be published annually, but only one ever appeared, in 1912. After that war got in the way and Franz Marc was actually killed at Verdun in 1916.
You were allowed to take photos of some of the art in the gallery (some things had a “no photos” symbol beside them), so here are a few of the ones I took:
Franz Marc, Die großen blauen Pferde [The Large Blue Horses] (1911)
Franz Marc, Liegender Hund im Schnee [Dog Lying in the Snow] (1910–11)
August Macke, Walterchens Spielsachen [Little Walter’s Toys]
Franz Marc, Drei Tiere (Hund, Katze und Fuchs) [Three animals: Dog, Cat and Fox], 1912
Most of the work was too abstract for me, but it was interesting to look at – and especially to see Marc’s transition from relatively normal looking animals (in funny colours) to things that could juuust about still be recognised as what he claimed they were. Kandinsky is really not to my taste though!
After looking at the art, we headed out into the gardens, which at the time were filled with lovely autumn colours. A few photos from there:
Touristy bit: To get to Fondation Beyerle, take tram number 6 to Fondation Beyeler. You can also take tram 2 to Riehen Dorf, but from there you will have to walk a little bit.
This art gallery visit was my November trip for Take 12 Trips 2016. One more trip to go!
The basilisk is a legendary reptile said to be “king of the serpents or snakes”. Allegedly it was hatched by a cockerel from the egg of a serpent or toad (making it kind of the opposite of a cockatrice, which is hatched from a cockerel’s egg that was incubated by a serpent or toad). Part reptile and part bird, the basilisk is usually described as a crested snake, or as a cockerel with a snake’s tail. A basilisk can kill you with a look or a breath, while it in turn can only be killed by a weasel, a cockerel’s crow or by being made to look at its own reflection.
The basilisk is also the heraldic animal of Basel. Various legends connect the city with the mythical beast – probably thanks to the similarity of the names (Basilea is another name for Basel, which makes the connection even more obvious). One legend has it that a basilisk once lived in a cave below the site of what is now the Gerberbrunnen (tanner’s fountain) another that a merchant once brought a basilisk to Basel. In 1474 a cockerel was sentenced to death in Basel. His crime? He was accused of having laid an egg, which of course went against nature, and the citizens of Basel were afraid that said egg would hatch into a basilisk. The cockerel was beheaded following a proper trial and the offending egg cast into the fire.
Below, you see the Gerber fountain. The writing tells the story of the basilisk that lived below it, but more poetically than I did.
Given the above, you can naturally find many basilisks in Basel. You can hardly walk down a street without seeing one! Today I want to share some of those basilisks with you.
The most obvious basilisks come in the form of a fountain. If you spend any time in Basel, you will come across a basilisk fountain sooner or later. These fountains go all the way back to 1884, when they were the winner of a competition. Originally there were 50 of them. Now there are apparently 28, although I haven’t seen them all. The water in the basilisk fountains can be drunk, and my favourite feature (other than the obvious fact of the basilisk) is that each one has a little bowl at the bottom so dogs can have a drink too!
All the basilisks along the Rhine face towards the water… apart from one. You can see it in a couple of the photos above. This is the basilisk that stands across the river from the cathedral. The idea is that this one faces away from the Rhine to allow people to take a photo with both the basilisk and the cathedral. Ironically, you can’t actually see the cathedral in either of my photos above!
Next up, the giant basilisk from the Wettstein bridge… another one that’s hard to miss if you find yourself in the right place!
As you can probably tell by the sky, those photos were taken at different times. I have a thing for taking the same photos over and over 😉
Originally this big basilisk was one of four, two of which stood at each end of the bridge. All four basilisks still exist, but only this one still stands at the original location. One has been exiled and now stands somewhere by Lake Lucerne, another stands in the courtyard of a building called “Zum Basilisk” and I have no idea how to get in to see him. But the fourth and final one stands at the entrance to the “Lange Erlen” animal park… and I took a trip there just so I could get photos of him for you:
Many companies in Basel have appropriated the Basel for their name (well, wouldn’t you?). There’s a Basilisk hotel – with its own basilisk standing outside – a local radio station called Basilisk and a Basilisk electronics company. One of the local breweries even named a beer Basilisk (and a very nice beer it is too – can recommend!).
There are various basilisks (or creatures that I assume are basilisks!) at the town hall, including a golden one sitting a Roman soldier’s helmet, and several on top of the SBB train station.
Jan thinks this is a basilisk… I was thinking some kind of weird crow. What do you reckon?
Various other basilisks are dotted around the place… rendered in metal, carved into walls, sitting on buildings… You’ll find that a lot of them are holding shields with the “Baselstab” or Basel staff, a stylised version of a bishop’s staff that is emblem of Basel, going back to the days when it was Catholic (it isn’t any more). After all, as the heraldic animal it’s the basilisk’s duty to hold the coat of arms!
Basilisk? Not sure but I like him!
I haven’t said where most of the basilisks featured here are, partly because I don’t remember where every single photo was taken, but also because I want to encourage people to spot the basilisks themselves as they walk around (hint: look up a lot!). You may have been overwhelmed by the photos in this post, but trust me there are many, many more to be found if you keep your eyes open!
So, what do you think? Fancy coming to Basel for a basilisk hunt?
![Franz Marc, Die großen blauen Pferde [The Large Blue Horses] (1911)](https://confuzzledom.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/dscn9491.jpg?w=453&h=340 "dscn9491")
![Franz Marc, Liegender Hund im Schnee [Dog Lying in the Snow] (1910–11)](https://confuzzledom.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/dscn9494.jpg?w=224&h=168 "dscn9494")
![August Macke, Walterchens Spielsachen [Little Walter's Toys]](https://confuzzledom.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/dscn9497.jpg?w=224&h=168 "dscn9497")
![Franz Marc, Drei Tiere (Hund, Katze und Fuchs) [Three animals: Dog, Cat and Fox], 1912](https://confuzzledom.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/dscn9500.jpg?w=681&h=511 "dscn9500")
Confuzzledom 