Glacier 3000

Near our dock, there is a monument to the friendship and to the meeting point of Switzerland, Germany, and France – too bad it hasn’t been kept up; a lot of weeds, no flowers, and tagged. (looks like a rocket ship) We headed to Basel, Switzerland’s Old Town, a cluster of medieval buildings on a hilly riverbank. We started our tour by visiting the Markplatz, or Market Square, which is surrounded by many old guild halls built in the late Gothic, Renaissance, or Baroque styles. The Rathaus, or town hall, has some ornate spires but does not match the ornate towers of the 13th-century red-sandstone Münster or Cathedral. Behind the cathedral is an open terrace providing excellent views of the Rhine River and the cable ferries that cross it using the water flow to follow a guideline from old town to new town. Having about an hour and a half of free time, we walked around the city’s botanical garden, the old city walls from the Spalentor Gate in the west to The Tinguely fountain and it’s mechanical water displays back through the city center over the Middle Bridge to the Basel Papermill Museum and St. Albans Gate in the east – finally back to Kuntsmuseum to catch our bus back to the ship.

BTW, we were informed that we will need to switch boats before Frankfurt because Rhine water levels are too low – fortunately, it will be a 3-hour bus ride to get to our next ship, and we will be able to complete the remainder of our cruise after the transfer.

We left Montreux at 9:30 in a rail car (Golden Pass Express), which was 80% windows. The first leg of our journey was a scenic climb to Gstaad about 2 hours away. The train needed to zig-zag up the mountain because it was a flat rail rather than a cogwheel train. At Gstaad, we boarded a cable car to reach the summit and Glacier 3000 winter park in the Vaudois Alps. It was clear at the base of the mountain, but as we ascended from 5000 ft to the summit at 9500ft it became cloudier until visibility approached zero. Fortunately, there were breaks which allowed Chris to ride a mountain roller coaster. However, when we headed to walk the peak-to-peak suspension bridge, very little visibility was available- no matter that we hiked across into the clouds. After lunch at a mountain top restaurant, we descended by. gondola and headed to Gstaad to again ride the Golden Pass Express to Interlaken. We were able to walk the town center before we boarded another regular railway to our final destination for the evening – Grindelwald. For tonight and tomorrow, we are staying at Hotel Schweizerhof, a “Romantic Chain Hotel”.