Mike with a his-hand-sized, grilled ravioli. Yum.
Then, on Saturday, we hosted a combination birthday-and-post-wedding BBQ for our friends August and Pia, who, being Swedish and rather accomplished hunters, supplied 7 kilos of moose brisket, which we smoked and then (along with roughly 12 other people) devoured entirely, along with a 3-kilo smoked moose meatloaf, two salads, various chips and nuts, and an apple pie and a half. There was enough meatloaf left over for a single sandwich, and that was it. No surprise, though: I think moose is my new favorite red meat. Holy cow (...if you will...), is that stuff delicious.
Finally, on Sunday, as it was sunny outside and we hadn't eaten nearly all of the things we'd wanted at the Street Food Festival on Friday...we went back. Round two involved another banh xeo; more ceviche, but this time with "chicharron de pescado" (i.e, wee fried fish bites); a rather large half-sandwich with pastrami and cheese on a nice grainy bread; Japanese fried chicken; chicken flautas from those people with the outrageous salsas (they were out of tacos by then, to our complete disappointment, but their flautas were clearly homemade and awesome!); and then we went out with a bang: big, overstuffed arepas, one with pulled pork, corn salsa, lettuce, and tangy red sauce; and the other with sheep's cheese, avocado, and the same corn and red salsas. The vegetarian arepa was one of the best things I've stuffed into my face in a long, long time: SO. SPECTACULAR. I think it was my favorite thing from the entire festival, and obviously, that's saying a lot, as we ate a lot. (And intended to eat just a wee bit more, but the churros had run out by the time we left. Probably for the best, but still...those things are just so good.)
Vegetarian arepa. Holy wow. Happiness in a grilled cornmeal bun.
And now, to the real story: our August 1 adventures! To sum up: August 1 is the big Swiss national holiday celebrating the unification of the still-insanely-independent Swiss cantons into the Confoederatio Helvetica (Latin for "Swiss Confederation," essentially) in 1291. I'm going to go on record to say that it's a ridiculous name, but it does explain the CH in CHF (the abbreviation for the currency of Switzerland, the Swiss franc/frank), and the .ch in Swiss domain names, among other things. The cantons have their own governments, tax laws, citizenship requirements, and, among other things, holidays--but August 1 is the one holiday to rule them all. In the past, we've stayed in Zürich and thrown a big barbecue for it, but as Zürich does nothing to celebrate, other than to let crazy drunk people light off giant and dangerous fireworks anywhere they want (fun the first time, but then just stupid when you stop and think about it!), I felt it was time to explore some actual organized celebrations elsewhere. And because Basel usually hosts their city-wide party (the Bundesfeier am Rhein!) on July 31, we were able to make it a two-day-er. Woooo!**
After riding in just a little bit of light rain, we arrived in Basel early-evening, dropped the motorcycle off at our hotel next to Spalentor (an ideal location, seeing as how it's a only 10-minute walk from the festivities, but in a much, much quieter part of town!), and headed towards the river.
Spalentorrrrrrrrr! Fantastical as ever.
I call this "Rathaus with Sausage Truck." (The main festivities were centered around Mittlerer Brücke, on either side of the Rhein, with a big collection of food vendors and music and games on the Rathausplatz.)
View from Mittlerer Brücke of the fireboat races on the river.
Alp horn performance in Kleinbasel.
Naturally, tons of the Gugge bands had booths there selling sausages and beer to raise money for Fasnacht. (It's only 5 months away, people!)
I don't know whether this is normal, seeing as how it was our first August 1 in Basel, but they had no fewer than five music groups performing when we arrived, and I know there were more scattered around the festivities. What I do know is that they were utterly top-notch, and totally unexpected.
I think these guys were my favorite: right on the Rathausplatz, we found the Steppin' Stompers, a Swiss Dixieland band. I could have stayed and listened to them all night. (Featuring guest appearance by Charlie Chaplin towards the end.)
Around the corner were these guys, the Feldmusikverein Basel, who had some serious Big Band chops.
These guys were playing on the bridge, next to the little chapel in the middle. (Yep, that's 'Born Free.')
On the other side of the bridge, right after the Alp horn performance, the (also Swiss) Bayou Street Beat & Brass Band came marching through. (Don't know what was up with all the Dixieland, but I loved every second of it.)
Ugh, I know it's excessive, but I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't recount for you what we ate, so...a flammkuchen baguette; a bowl of Thai noodles and veggies; Vietnamese coconut shrimp and spring rolls; and a "piranha wurst" (spicy, of course.) Even when it's not quite as exotic as the goodies one finds at the Street Food fairs, I'm not going to kid you: I love me some festival food.
And finally, there were the fireworks. Pretty much everything I read about Basel's big party said not to stand on the Mittlerer Brücke for the fireworks--it's too crowded, dangerous, don't bring strollers and/or small children, etc., etc. We decided we were growns-up enough to decide for ourselves, though, and parked ourselves right in the middle of it, and it was a great decision. It wasn't the biggest or most impressive firework display ever, but it wasn't small, and it was on both sides of us--they do the same show from barges in the river on either side of the bridge! I somehow managed not to get video of the dual shows, but here's a not-great photo with the barge at the bottom. (So at least there's that.)
Way, way better than avoiding the crazies at Bellevue.
The next day, we had some time to kill before heading to Lauterbrunnen, our second destination, and since we were right across the street from the University of Basel's main botanic garden, I dragged Mike over there to look at some fancy plants. (You might remember this garden from such posts as the one in which our attempt to see the world's largest flower in bloom was unsuccessful.) And now, consider yourselves warned: if you didn't know me in my past life as a Denver housewife, I'M ALL ABOUT THE PLANTS AND THE GREENHOUSES. I have actual hundreds of photos from Denver's amazing botanic gardens, and so there will be far too many photos of Basel's here. (FYI, I can unreservedly recommend both Denver's and Basel's gardens. The latter ain't huge, but it's quality.)
In Basel's, there are birds! Fancy, fancy birds!
This one is, in fact, as turquoise as it appears. (He, or one of his ilk, began dive-bombing us a bit later. I think they were quite ready for us to go.)
Titanwurz is apparently a tree when it's not in bloom. (Who knew?? Botanists, probably.)
We saw a few of these little guys, too, but they were just too fast to photograph. (Tiny green birds with white spectacle eyes?? YES, PLEASE. GAHHHHH, SO CUTE AND HOPPY!!)
Ok, so obviously this is related to hibiscus, but still...it's upside-down, and so very feathery!
Nifty outdoor grotto complete with huge cypress tree.
Outrageously cool succulent that looks like green roses. (GET IN MY HOUSE, PLANT! And you can be the bestest of friends with my new wee green bird...)
Totally gorgeous carnivorous plant display.
The Viktoriahaus, built in 1898 to house these gigantic water lilies. (By our estimation, there are about a gajillion tiny little fish in the ponds in this room.)
After we'd (ok, I...I'm pretty sure Mike was ready to tap out after 10 minutes) had our fill of succulents and cacti and lovely landscaping and pretty (but slightly kamikaze) birds, we bundled up and got back on the bike to ride south to Lauterbrunnen. I'd been wanting to go there for ages, and so when I discovered that they had their own little August 1 party, it seemed like the perfect excuse to go. Sadly, it was fairly chilly and a bit rainy, and so the activities earlier in the day had been canceled, but at least we still had the view:
Main street from our hotel balcony, with bonus waterfall on the right.
View of the canyon wall across the street from our hotel.
We shared a massive and delicious pastrami sandwich, bought me a belt (that's not a euphemism for anything--I'd forgotten mine, and was desperately hitching up the one too-big pair of pants that I own), and then opted to have dinner at our hotel. While I found their list of rösti intriguing, it was quite cool outside, and so we got a bit crazy and went for their fondue-for-two, which included an excellent salad with garlicky dressing as a starter, and a well-portioned pot of Vacherin for the cheese, attended by some lovely brown bread, a couple of potatoes, and chives/garlic/onions as extras to add in. And was followed by a homemade apple strudel with vanilla sauce and whipped cream.*** We dined outside on the front patio, which Mike figured would be the perfect spot to view the little "local clubs" parade that was the only non-firework August 1 activity not canceled that day. As it turned out, he was totally right.
On their way to the parade, this yodel choir stopped to serenade our patio. Awesome. (They rode by during the parade on the back of a flatbed truck, sitting at a picnic table, drinking something that I'm sure was keeping them all quite warm.)
This band also stopped and played at our patio.
Sadly, the parade was about thislong, and since it was dark and cold and they were all moving quite quickly, I didn't get any other useable photos of them. There were a couple of groups of people in traditional dress, as well as a guy dressed as Wilhelm Tell, carrying a crossbow; the marching band; the yodel choir in the truck; and that was about it. Finished just in time to go figure out where the fireworks were!
Across the river and down in the canyon, as it turned out. There was a big bonfire going (foreground), and in the background here, you can kinda see those ridiculously sheer rock walls that were on either side of us.
And that, friends, made for some pretty impressive fireworks. Not the visuals so much as the sound, however. Before the smoke got too thick, you could see the fireworks light up the sides of the canyon, but later on, you could only see the explosions themselves and hear the insane echoes bouncing back and forth off the rock walls. Seriously awesome.
Thankfully, the weather the next morning had cleared, and so we got the real view:
Holy...smokes...
Why yes, that is a waterfall quite literally in town.
This isn't the best photo, but I tell you, the Swiss are the best window-box gardeners on the planet. Geraniums and petunias are healthy and everywhere, as soon as the weather is warm enough!
On our way out of town, we found some breakfast at a wee cafe down the street from our hotel, then decided to drive up the canyon to visit the Trümmelbach falls on a whim. Trümmelbach, for those of you who don't know--and we certainly didn't--is a waterfall inside a mountain. According to their signage, it is the sole drainage for the "mighty glacier defiles" of the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau peaks (all of which are over 13,000 feet, and are major and famous Alps); runs at 20,000 liters per second; and carries with it 20,200 tons of "boulder detritus" per year. All of that to say that good grief, does Mother Nature pack a punch. There are 10 distinctive sections of waterfall here, and none fail to impress. (Sadly, none of the videos I tried to take were even remotely in focus, so you'll just have to imagine the absolutely thunderous sound of this waterfall, along with things a video wouldn't capture--the chill and the dampness in the air and the rock as you climb around inside of this mountain like a weird little interior-mountain goat, and the way you can feel the rock shaking under your feet. Incredible and thrilling and terrifying, all at once.)
I know these stairs aren't quite as picturesque as the rest, but the engineering implemented here is truly impressive. Whomever designed and then cut all of the tunnels and stairs and viewing ledges and little windows inside this mountain--and installed the safety railing, lest we forget!--did a remarkable job. (Still...no kids under 4 allowed, and I think that's really pushing it.)
Back out in the sunshine, the view was this:
Sheesh. Fun fact: there are 72 waterfalls in this valley, and there's apparently a relatively easy hike that you can take between Lauterbrunnen and Stechelberg that'll let you see a good number of them. (Next time...!)
After that, it was time to head home. Not that the drive was in any way painful: we drove through Interlaken and Brienz, and along the shores of insanely turquoise lakes for most of the way. (I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this country is crazy beautiful. But here's a new twist: I think I might need move to Brienz someday. Jeez, so quaint and stunning...)
Next up: I get to cash in on my Christmas present--a trip to Verona to see the opera in their Roman amphitheater. (Yeah, that's a real thing. That we did.)
*Eating an entire plate of anything is a big no-no in my own personal "How To Do a Street Food Festival Justice" handbook--Rule 1: share everything, so as to be able to try more things!!--but in this case, it was totally worth it.
**My apologies: I decided not to carry the big camera, due to crowds in Basel and forecasted rain in Lauterbrunnen, and I think it was the right decision. That having been said, all of these photos/videos are from our phones. So, sorry for the low quality. Ugh.
***Yes, I know fondue's a winter food, thank you. But it was cold enough outside, we were in the mountains, and the longer we live here, the more we like fondue, so it happened. No regrets.
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