European Culture & Tradition: Swiss Weihnachtsmarkt in Basle (Satis Shroff)

European Culture: Traditional Weihnachtsmarkt in Basle (Satis Shroff)

The sleek, white ICE dashes from Freiburg to Basle, Switzerland’s second biggest town on a Saturday afternoon. The day’s work is done  and you enjoy your volvic mango juice. As the train approaches the Markgräflerland, known for its vineyards, it becomes hazy. You see salad and asparagus fields covered with white plastic sheets. Along the parallel road, trucks and cars speed by.

The train goes through the Katzenberg tunnel and it’s dark outside but the train is well lit. A blonde white winter cap and a red dress comes by and gives a spontaneous smile. She can’t decide where to sit in the train. Naked trees flash by as the train pulls out of the tunnel. Some trees have bird’s nests in the higher branches. Ah, you have luck and see a rabbit in the field.

GE DIGITAL CAMERA

Approaching Weil am Rhine. Cross the Rhine and you’re in Basle. Bahnbetriebswerk Haltungen says a shield. German words are so long sometimes. Mark Twain was annoyed by such words. His suggestion was: throw out the umlauts in ä, ö and ü and simplify the Teutonic tongue. I find it wonderful when a German woman says ‘r’ with a guttural sound. Sounds like the purring of a big cat.

Outside at least eight red diesel engines are parked near each other.

‘Jemand eingestiegen?’ asks the jolly, red-faced German conductor and walks away down the aisle.

Smokingfactories, more train tracks. Approaching Basle: Ziegler sign, buildings going up and a speaker of the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) wishes you a good day in German and English without even stopping to breath.

From Basle you can go anywhere to Europe for it has three main railway stations: the Swiss railway (SBB), the French station (SNCF) and the German Badischer Bahnhof (DBB)—all located in the city centre. And the green trams,   modern and old ones, as well as the buses run at 71/2 minute intervals. That’s Swiss precision. You take the trams 15 (the 16 takes the same route), and you go through the city centre over the Bruderholz. The tram crosses the scenic Rhine twice, and you get to see the most interesting sights of Basle.

From the Münsterplatz’s embankment you get a wonderful view of the Rhine. You take the steep stairs leading to the Schiffländle or the Dreiländereck (three-country-triangle) and you can cross the Rhine in a wooden ferry, a very romantic ride from where you can see the bridges and the cathedral towering above the olde fortifications.

In Freiburg across the Rhine, Hans Holbein, a German painter and designer, is remembered by a street name, the Holbein Strasse in Günterstal. He lived and worked in Basle from 1514 to 1526 and from 1528 till 1531.

Thomas Platter (1499-1582) was the first rector of the Basle Latin School.

Recently there was the Day of Poesie in Basle. Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) was celebrated in Basle with much ado. He was a Dutch humanist scholar who lived and worked in Basle from 1521 till 1529, and many of his works were printed by Froben. A European scholarship, which brings students from the Continent together, has been named after Erasmus, and he was buried in the Basler cathedral. In the days of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Basle, a city of humanists, was a centre of book printing and paper education. Later, the reformation brought silk weaving and dying, and even later the pharmaceutical and chemical companies.

Another famous son associated with Basle  is Theophrastus von Hohenheim, also known as Paracelsus (1493 till 1541), a renowned physician and alchemist.

The Basler Jakob Burckhardt (1818-97) was among the most eminent cultural historians of his time. The above-mentioned people of significance in Basle’s history belong to the walking tours of Basle, beginning at the Marktplatz with a duration of 30 to 90 minutes.

Once upon a time Basle was a fortified settlement and today it is a centre for life sciences, and for chemical and pharma industry, logistic companies, transport and financial sectors. Basle is also known for its trade fairs and congresses. It has over 200,000 inhabitants and one of the highest quality of life (QOL) worldwide.

Basle is also known for its museums and art. My favourite is the Anatomy Museum with historical original dissections of the human body parts and organs, and the best attested anatomical specimens, including a skeleton dating back to 1543.

Currently there’s a Swiss exhibition from 4.09.16 till 15.01.17: Kandinsky, Marc and the Blue Rider which was a turning point in art, and has influenced generations of artists till today.

Another interesting exhibition is the Figurative Pollock which is running till January 22, 2017 in the new section of St. Alban-Graben 20.

‘When you’re painting out of your unconscious, figures are bound to emerge,’ said Jackson Pollock in an interview in 1956. Yes, most people associate the US painter with his abstract drip paintings. Pollok’s extensive earlier works and the figurative paintings that followed the ‘dripping’ period are far less known. The exhibition presents 100 paintings and sketches on paper, major works from private collections, eminent pieces on loan from European, American, Australian and Japanese museums.

Strich & Faden is another interesting exhibition at the textile-atelier in Steinenring, and also at the Weihnachts-market around the cathedral. The atelier is run by Dario Natali and Karin Diethelm. Karin is a Baslerin and she combines her love of the city with her textile world, which she uses as her sujet in her black and white drawings.

Ah, what would the Basler Weihnachtsmarkt be without Santa Claus? The Swiss Harley Niggi Näggi comes with 40 of his friends dressed as angels and sammiklaus with Christmas trees and music on their Harley Davidsons through the city. You watch this motorbike spectacle  even though your feet are cold.

As you walk along the bridge across the Rhine, take in the brightly lit riverine scenery of Basle reflected on the waterfront, and relish the Basler läckerlis, you say to yourself: ‘Das war wunderbar