A local tram in Zurich to the transit center, an inner city train (located the right gate with great difficulty) to Basel, and we were there. Our next AirBnb was actually close enough to walk to, but we got a hard lesson in making Google Maps work for pedestrians in a dense urban environment. A 15 minute walk turned into a 45 minute slog in hot weather.
Per Zurich, the density of bikes near the train hub was boggling. Housing is uniformly dense. Block after block of 4-6 story high buildings, all but the 1st floor housing. Every block looks the same. It’s hard to know where true north is. We made enough mistakes walking the wrong way to realize we needed to get our compass out and orient our phones before we started “following the blue dot”.
This Airbnb gave us our first clue as to why every single block has a hundred bikes parked outside. We had to navigate up 3 floors of a circular staircase, with suitcases. A big difference between European stairs and American stairs. Euro stairs are STEEP. Halfway to ladder steep. And the tread is tiny. Circular stairs are worse. The widest part is not as wide as my foot is long. The narrow part is down to an inch or two. There’s no way a person could bring a bike up and down such. So outside the bikes live, 365 days a year. And virtually everyone has a bike, what with the bike paths being so pervasive and spectacularly designed.
Bike paths are literally everywhere. Some share roads, with a painted lane, but most are separated from cars. Bike lanes are red. Pedestrian sidewalks are not and the twain seldom meet. Bikes have total right of way on the red.
We really liked the feel of Basel, altho it wasn’t as spotless as Zurich. (Nothing could possibly be as spotless as Zurich). Day one we walked a mile to the Basel’s Old Town for a guided walking tour. Day two we rented e-bikes (20 EU for the day), pedaled across the Rhine and then up and down, both directions, including to where our river cruise boat was due to dock.
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