I had the chance to visit the beautiful city of Basel in Switzerland in July 2020 for a job for about a week. On the train from Berlin to Basel we met a nice guy from Basel and he offered to meet up and show us a bit of his hometown in the next days. What a great start for our visit to a city i haven't been before. It's always nice to have a local to show you around, especially such a nice guy like Mikey. This way you get to know more and often not so obvious things about the places you go.
The Rhine River Adventure
Now, let me take you with us on the little Rhine river adventure we had as Mikey, the Basel guy, showed me a not so typical path at the banks of the river towards an island with a hydroelectric power plant on a hot and sunny day. The photos are showing a few impressions of the whole trip and in between them there was a lot of hiking up and down, stairs, bushes and interesting stories about Basel from Mikey as well. The destination wasn’t very far, but the path we took was the absolut opposite of a straight line.
We met underneath the "Schwarzwaldbrücke", one of the 8 bridges crossing the Rhine river in Basel. On the photo you can see the feet of the old and the new railway bridges that are located right next to the Schwarzwald Bridge.
The next photo shows our destination, the hydroelectric power plant Birsfelden, as seen from our starting point underneath the Schwarzwald Bridge and the rocks in the foreground were our first obstacle to master.
I told you it’s going to be a little adventurous and here you see one of the very few straight paths to walk on and the first moment when i felt a bit like Indiana Jones exploring hidden temples somewhere in the jungle 😉
Here we took a peak towards the other side of the river at one of the Rhine beaches the people of Basel go to enjoy the water in the summertime. This place is called Birsköpfli, because the river Birs meets the river Rhine here.
Since the river has a pretty strong current it's a fun thing to do in summer to jump into the river upstream and be carried downstream, get out, have a coffee in the sun, get back upstream by bus and repeat. That's why it's common that people carry water tight bags with them for a spontaneous river float. Here you see one of the typical exit places at the "Mittlere Rheinbrücke".
That was one of the little stories Mikey told me on the way, but let's get back to our adventure with another “Indiana Jones Moment” to enjoy and right after we paused there for a minute the path became a bit more difficult to walk.
We had to walk across some big and loose pebbles for a few meters and there i almost stepped on a black longhorn beetle. Luckily i noticed him before that happened and i almost fell into the water while hastily stepping aside. Wow, that was close for him and for me.
After that we had to balance on a very narrow stonewall with a lot of thorned branches hanging in the way, but the branches turned out to be blackberry bushes with a lot of ripe fruits and we were getting closer to our destination, as you can see in the background of the photo.
What a very nice reward for the wild path we already accomplished so far on this hot day. Yes, we ate quiet a few of them and they were extremely tasty!
😋
Guess what we found next after we were almost stuck in those thorny blackberry bushes.
Hazelnuts, yes, we found wild hazelnuts right after we had a tasty blackberry snack on our way to our destination. Since they weren’t ripe we let them were they belong to keep on growing. The only thing i took from there was this photo.
Meanwhile, back in the jungle another one of those “Indiana Jones Moments” was already waiting for us, a hidden staircase revealed by the sunlight on our little Rhine river adventure at the banks of the Rhine river.
While hiking I like to take a look over my shoulder from time to time, because the path just walked can look very different when you turn around and sometimes even reveal overlooked sights.
Photo tip: Sometimes the look over your shoulder can even reward you with a surprisingly beautiful motif to shoot before you move on. In this case I'd just say:
🧚🏼♀️ "Welcome to the Enchanted Forest" ... kind of 😉
And now, right after a few more ups and downs and thorny bushes, no berries this time, this view presented itself to us and we knew we’re almost there, at the Hydroelectric Power Plant Birsfelden. Is it just me or do these towers look like cubistic owls? 🧐
Anyway, let’s go over the bridge to the island, i'm thirsty now!
Arriving on the island we found a cosy little garden restaurant and had a well deserved ice cold craft beer with some really good country fries and enjoyed chillin’ in the shadows. The swiss name “Chopfab” of that tasty beer can be translated as “Head Off” and i can’t really remember how high the alcohol percentage was, hmm ...
☀️🍻🤔🥴😜
After walking around and enjoying the island for a while we went to the farthest end of it where Mikey had a spontaneous bath in the river, but he stayed with me and didn't float downstream. I enjoyed and shot this nice view with some vineyards on the hills over there.
It wasn’t much of an epic view down the Rhine river from here as i had hoped but it wasn’t an ugly sight either as you can see and standing there, thinking of our Rhine river adventure, remembering all the beautiful little moments on the way to this beautiful spot i could just smile and think:
The journey is the reward!
And this one definitely was a very nice and rewarding one! But hey, read on, it’s not over ‘til it’s over, because there is ...
... one more thing!
After we spent the rest of the day walkin’, talkin’ and chillin’ on that island we headed back while the sun was already setting over Basel and there it was ... our epic view of the day ... from the bridge of the power plant looking towards the city ... the water swirls of the power plant’s turbines were catching the last sunlight ... aaaand SHOWTIME:
Still here? Great!
I hope you enjoyed our little journey
down the banks of the Rhine river
as much as we did experiencing it
that day in sunny Basel.
Thank you for reading
See you when enjoying my next post
• Stay healthy • be open minded and curious •
• wherever you are • wherever life takes you •
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