A day's trip to Basel.

I've been kept plenty busy this past week studying for one midterm and finishing up the report on another that I don't have time to do anything fun. But ah well, next week is the Easter break that's coming up, so I'll be going to France this Thursday!!

However, I did go someplace today, like most other Saturdays. Saturday is like the only time I have of the week to go out to play... Ah, but anyway, I went to Basel today with several other friends to pick another friend up from the airport there. And since we're there, we took a quick look-see around Basel.

Basel is located in the German part of Switzerland, a good 2 hours plus ride by train from Lausanne. It's an old city, with many museums and old style architecture. Basically, we had limited time to visit the places we wanted to visit, so we only visited like a handful of attractions in Basel. But what stood out from the attractions that we went to was the City Hall and the Münster.

The City Hall (or Rathaus in german) is this red building in the Marktplatz (I'm guessing it means Marketplace...). It instantly grabs one's attention when you walk into that area. Its red walls stands out against the other buildings around it. The exterior walls are as colourfully painted and decorated as the inside of the place. Although I don't think we went in deep enough into the building to see how the building got its name, the decor of the building did impress me. I realised that murals are a huge thing in the old european times. Many old and important buildings that I visited had some kind of impressive murals somewhere. Even ordinary buildings have smaller murals that looked pretty nice. The only mural that I remembered seeing in Singapore was the Mr. Bean thing on the side of this building. I would see it when I'm on the train to school. Can't remember which area though... Somewhere in the west, if I'm not wrong.

After the City Hall, we walked on, following the route on the maps and visiting some odd statues and fountains here and there. We got to the river Rhine and this lady told us that we could take a boat across the river to get to the Münster pretty quickly. So, after a pretty enjoyable ride, we got to the Münster, which is another place that is pretty nice to look at. Its a church and there was a service going on, so we couldn't enter the church area. But we did explore the interior a little (where it was permissible)and take a few photos.

Nothing juicy to talk about Basel, actually. Maybe 'cos I spent too little time there. Maybe the next time there would be better. But for now, pictures!

This time, I shot entirely with the Olympus and my shaky hands somehow got less shaky today so I got a few more decent pictures than usual.
A picture of the Basel Theater. Just walked pass it, didn't enter, but from the ads outside, it seemed like a pretty hip place to go for a play or a concert...
The City Hall. Had to shoot at an angle to capture the clock tower...
Interior of the City Hall (1)
Interior of the City Hall (2)... The entire building is painted red with the murals painted above it.
The Munster from the opposite bank of the river Rhines
A nice shot of the Munster (well, at least I like this shot)

Random picture of me with a fountain. That statue is a dragon. Not very obvious, I know...
Well, stay tuned for pictures from the France trip. I'm looking forward to it.

I have to finish up any work that I have on my hands so that I can go to France in peace for the entire week so that means I might have nothing interesting to write about.

Shall I talk about the weather then? We'll see...

Until then, stay tuned. (yes, u can gloss over my entry on the weather. It will come in 4 days, before I leave for France... I forsee that that entry would be particularly boring.)