Sunday, 16 August. The Rhapsody arrived at Basel about 8:00 and moored on the Swiss side of the Three Countries Corner (Dreilaendereck), where the borders of France, Germany and Switzerland meet. The weather was pleasant and partly cloudy.

Our group was the last of the three to leave for the walking tour. At 10:00, accompanied by our Tour Director, a shuttle bus took us to the Kleinhueningen streetcar stop. We were all given transit passes good for the day. The public transit system was outstanding. At every bus and streetcar stop there was an electronic sign identifying all the lines that stopped there and showing the precise time the next bus or streetcar from each line would arrive at that stop.

We took the street car to Barfuesser Platz (Bare Foot Friars Square), named for the Barfuesserkirche, a former Franciscan monastery church, now a city history museum. St. Leonard's Church (begun 13th century; rebuilt 1480-1512) loomed over the Square from a nearby hill. The Tour director led us past the Doll House Museum (Puppenhausmuseum) with the world's largest collection of old teddy bears, as well as many dolls and doll houses. We continued on to the Tinguely Fountain (1977) where several Rube Goldberg-like "machine sculptures" perform in a big pool.

Barfuesser Platz

Former Barfuesser Church

Tinguely Fountain

Then we walked a few blocks to the red sandstone Muenster (Cathedral)(1225; destroyed in an earthquake 1356; rebuilt 1363-1500) on a hill overlooking the Rhine. We visited the church and its cloister. Continuing on the the river, our Tour Director showed us a small ferry that goes back and forth across the Rhine by using the current. The boat is attached to a wire stretched across the river, and by skillfully turning the rudder, it is pushed from one side to the other. There are four such ferries in Basel. This one is the newest, started in 1877.

Cloister of the Basel Muenster

Ferry on a wire

Basel City Hall

By this time it was 11:30 and some of our group were pressing the Tour Director to get back to the ship. Lunch had been moved up to noon because an optional tour to the Rhine Falls was leaving at 1:30. He clearly had no sense of time. At first he resisted, and when he finally did yield, he complained loudly all the way back to the streetcar stop in the Marktplatz. As we waited for the streetcar, we had a chance to see the ornate red Rathaus (16th century).

We got back to the ship about 1:30 as lunch was being served. We were not taking the Rhine Falls tour because we'd been there in 1971. We decided to take the streetcar back into the city, particularly to the train station. We were leaving the tour the next morning and catching a very early train. We didn't want to take a chance on being delayed in an unfamiliar setting. The streetcar we took from Kleinhueningen stop near the ship went all the way to the train station. We explored the station so we'd know exactly where to go in the morning. We also checked out the hotel we would be staying at when we returned from Italy.

This #15 became a #16 along the way View as we left Bruderholz

We transferred to the Kleinhueningen line at Barfuesser Platz and got back to the ship about 5:00. We did our final packing. Dinner was at 7:15, followed by a "Time to Say Goodbye" port talk. We weren't given time to say goodbye to anyone but the Tour Directors, though. They had bought more than 150 large Swiss chocolate bars and arranged them on a small table. Then they called various categories (e.g., redheads) to come up and take a bar. Jane was in the third group, women wearing socks. I fell into the "everyone else" category that came up last. We quickly said our goodbyes, took care of our bill and the tips, and went to bed. We had an early start in the morning.

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