Travel Space 4 U

9.08.07 The way to Basel took two hours with a change of trains. As we travelled almost every day by train, we often saw parents with children. But what was more impressive, it was a grandmother with one or two children. Certainly, it was vacation time. I remember a scene on one of the first days: a rather young-looking grandmother and two granddaughters were entering a train with suitcases and sacks, and when they were seated, the mother was running after a moving train with her both hands upwards and waving. The society of this country looks healthy.

So, Basel. It is still colder and rainy. There are churches: Elizabeth’s, Kirha Leonardo and an old Monastery, now it is a Historical Museum. There we found a plan of all the museums and historical places.

We found ancient gates of the town, very impressive architecturally and with pictures. In a  small street we noticed a café called Hebbel in an ancient house and dropped in from the cold and rainy street. It was a comfortable place with several tables, only at one of them  a group of men was sitting. A nice middle-aged hostess served us and explained how to find museums. We went along a large University campus with a garden and a strange statue of a man, holding his head in his hands. We peeped into Botanical garden belonging to the University.

Approaching the river Rein, we found a crowd of people on the embankment and the bridge, looking at the waters. The river was overloaded. The roaring yellow waves were quickly moving, bearing pieces of wood and small trees. They say, it often happens here.

8.08.07 Zurich again. Chagall’s stained-glass panels in a cathedral: a lot of tourists were sitting on benches, looking at the walls (three high walls), full of pictures, typical of Chagall: sheep, goats, pictures on the holy subjects. We watched the pictures for a long time, Julia took photos.

A wonderful old city with narrow streets, houses almost touching each other. There are many houses of X1Y-th and XY-th century, they are restored and look good. We did not see in Switzerland standard many-storied houses, all of them have their own face.

We learned, that even new houses often are built like ancient ones, with the same red roofs, covered with tiles. In one of the streets a detachment of guardians was marching with musicians, drums and other instruments. The public stood aside close to the walls of the houses and watched. Some of the soldiers smiled on us. Shop windows are very attractive. At this time we went to Art museum. We stood in a line about twenty minutes. The tickets were free for us thanks to our general family ticket. The collection is good: Van Gouge, Gogen, impressionists. There is a nice cafeteria at the museum. It was raining, when we were returning to the railway station. In the tram I dropped my bag, taking a seat with a wet umbrella. A middle-aged woman on the next seat told about the weather: “It is a catastrophe.” On my remark, that we are received well everywhere, she answered: “If you have money”.

We went directly to Chillion Castle by trolleybus. It was not yet open, we waited for half an hour.

The castle is built on the rock, that is surrounded with water. Just in the first rooms I saw a strange pile of big stones, that was the natural base of the castle. It was initially built by kelts, afterwards in each époque the masters changed and the castle was rebuilt.

We saw a pillar with Byron’s name written, he was here. Byron described in his poem the story of Bonivar, a fighter for the independence of Switzerland, who was imprisoned here. We saw many big rooms with ancient furniture and decoration, an old fire-place, wonderful windows and balconies looking on the lake. There is a knights’ hall with old arms and ammunition. There is a an observation platform upstairs.

There is a lot of stairs and corridors, three or four inner yards with yells, benches and beautiful flowers. When we left, we could see a line of visitors in front of us, the place is always crowded. In the souvenir shop there were many special pictures of the castle. On the bank of the Genève lake we saw swans, ducks, sea-gulls and sparrows, that were struggling for pieces of bread, thrown by a boy, to say the truth, swans were a little aback. We walked along the lake, and went up to the streets, it was a fine town. In a big street we found a Tea-room, a very respectable place, mainly visited by women. At the table next to ours there was sitting a elderly aristocratic lady in white jacket and gloves, a hat on her head. The waiters served in silence, the tea, coffee and cakes were excellent. It was afternoon, when we took a train to Geneva. The first impression of that town was not very good: on the bank of the lake a crowd of tents with Eastern goods and sellers. They say, these people are allowed only to be temporary here, they are never given even a status of temporary citizen. We were sitting in a square nearby, decorated with a statue of unknown noble man, then took a tram and looked about the old city: Saint Peter cathedral and Notre Dam. In the evening we returned home by ordinary train.