Snowman building ... We got snow or were in snow every day of our friend's visit - and this was on top of the 18 inches we got the week before. Ironically, it warmed up so much Saturday and Sunday that nearly all the snow is gone. (Today, we are having rain.)
A snapshot of us in traditional dress.
The Faschings Parade through Kempten.
Although not on this trip, this was a recent visit of hiking the we did in January.
A day of skiing...
Waiting for the train to Munich and scenes of the Marianplatz and the Glockenspiel.
ive to get there, the harried driving and parking in the city, we stopped first at the Museum of Natural History. It was a nice museum for a town of its size. We followed that up with a stop at a couple of chocolate shops to say we had actually gotten Swiss chocolate in Switzerland. We finished the day having the ultimate Swiss experience with Swiss fondue for supper. Upon leaving town, we crossed the Mittlere Brücke (Middle Bridge), the oldest bridge in the city and one of the oldest in the region. It served a very important purpose for many centuries as one of the only crossings of the Rhine (spelled here, it's Rhein) River and as the first permanent bridge to cross the waterway. The Rhine River has its beginnings in the high Swiss mountains near a town called Andermatt from the Rheinwaldhorn glacier. Its name is Celtic and means raging flow. It winds northward, making the border of Switzerland and both Liechtenstein and Austria where it takes a jog to the left through the large Lake Constance that borders both Germany and Switzerland and continues westward. Then, in Basel, it starts northward again and makes the border between Germany and France for a bit. Then, it travels through western Germany, meeting up with the Main River before entering the Rhine River Valley. This area is beautiful with many castles (to protect the valuable land along the river) atop the hills bordering either side of the river channel. It is also where Germany makes its renown wines. It continues northward through Bonn, Cologne, and Dusseldorf to a small town called Wesel before turning more westward and out to sea through The Netherlands.
It has served as a main shipping channel for thousands of years and is today still used as such. Ocean going vessels can go as far as Cologne, and then cargo is put on barges where it is pushed upriver to Basel. Basel serves as the last navigable point for the river, after which it becomes a jumble of waterfalls and rapids, with the minor exception being its movement through Lake Constance. Through canals that have been dug from this river to other main river ways in Germany, one can actually travel all the way across Europe, from the North Sea to the Black Sea.
Now knowing the importance of this great river, it becomes clear that for trade, particularly of Switzerland and regions south, the Basel crossing was of great importance. The bridge, although not the first to cross the river (Julius Caesar once built a bridge and used it for crossings into the region for a couple of years in 53 BC), was built in 1226 by Bishop Heinrich von Thun. It was a stone and wooden construction that also had a little chapel on the bridge. This chapel was not always a happy place. It was used to throw wayward women into the river to their deaths. The bishop had spent a sizable amount of money on this bridge and wanted it to remain, so he set up a military town on the northeast side of the Rhine to protect the bridge. Today, this is known as Kleinbasel, or little Basel and is the industrial section of Basel. The city proper is on the other side of the river. In the 1300s, it became a very important trade route. This brought Basel significant economic success and allowed the city to flourish. Today, Basel is the 2nd largest city in Switzerland.
The bridge took enormous resources to maintain due to the strong river currents, frequent flooding and wear and tear from freeze/thaw cycles. These funds were raised through a toll to use the bridge. Eventually, changes in modern transportation, namely the electric trains that run (rampantly and dangerously, I'd say) through Basel, required a reconstruction of the bridge to support the traffic. In 1905, it was completely reconstructed and made entirely out of granite. The little chapel was also reproduced and placed on the middle pier of the bridge, although its use as a throwing off point has remained a part of history, thankfully.
Special thanks goes to the following web sites for information about the Rhine and the bridge:
The word for the day is river: der Fluss.
The question of the day is "What is the connection between my birthday and NASA moon rockets?"
Auf Wiedersehen,
