17th December 2005 - Day 75

I woke up at 0420 as I was meeting up with Autumn and Augustine to visit Basel.

There was a direct train leaving for Basel at 0608 from Karlsruhe. We reached only at 0911 at the German side of the railway station, and took a 15 minutes walk towards the town centre.

Basel is not a town that tourists usually visit. There's not much tourist attraction in the town. One of the first things that I noticed was that all the fountains were still on. I haven't seen a flowing fountain yet in Germany. At least not on this trip.

We just walked around the town and visited the Christmas market there.

Overview of Basel from the top of a church

The Munster in Basel

Outside the Munster

A wall plastered with plates and saucers

Top of the church

Yeah, I think I had enough of Weihnachtsmarkt already.

Lunch was buffet at one of the restaurants in a Co-op. The pricing is according to the size of the plate you took. The larger the plate, the more expensive it was. There were only 10 dishes to choose from. According to Augustine, some of the stuffs actually were quite expensive outside.

Later, I realised that there were actually plastic boxes for you to pack your food in. Which probably mean that some tower builders could have two (or even three) meals for the price of one!

That would be fun. Something like a competition among friends. I took what I thought I could finish. The food tasted pretty good. And I felt like a bloated balloon.

So, if you eat something like that everyday (not very advisable though), Switzerland might not be as expensive as perceived after all!