Sunday 15 September 2013

Six days in Basel; Day 1 to Freiburg

Sorry, but we flew to Basel. Not the most scintillating first sentence of a blog post dedicated to rail travel, but an undeniable fact. But nobody is saying you have to be a martyr for the sake of taking a train.
An unexpectedly good deal on Swissair flying from London’s City Airport proved to be irresistible.

It also meant checking into the hotel at least two hours sooner, giving us an entire afternoon to be dedicated to a trip to The Black Forest..

Swiss Railways, SBB, has a ticket desk at Basel-Mulhouse airport so were able to pay for our three day Swiss Flexi Passes in person. We’d still been weighing up which to pass to opt for on the flight and as Swiss Passes are no cheaper online, purchasing them on arrival made sense.

We’d chosen to stay in Basel because we wanted to base ourselves in the one hotel for all six days of the trip, to save the hassle of packing/repacking and having to find our ways to the locations of multiple hotels.


Another factor was making the three day trips that we were going to across Switzerland as simple as possible. Basel has direct trains to more of the gateways to Switzerland’s most dramatic scenery – Arth Goldau; Brig, Chur, Interlaken, Landquart, Luzerm etc, than any other city.

Not for the first time I’d made what I thought was an online booking blunder with a hotel. Days of painstaking planning were jettisoned when confronted with ‘only two rooms left’ messages etc.
In the rush, I’d neglected to zoom in on the map of the hotel location.
What I’d thought was the edge of the city centre, was actually on the edge of the city itself, in Basel’s suburbs. Cue panic regarding how we’d actually get to the SBB station in Basel, the starting point of all the carefully worked out trips by train.

Fortunately I’d worried over nothing, the Courtyard Marriot in Pratteln, turned out to be a great choice. Its edge of an industrial estate location was about as far removed from an alpine idyll as can be imagined, but it helped explain why we’d been able to grab a great rate -  £90 per night for a 4star in Switzerland in August was a minor miracle.

The hotel was actually only an 8 minute walk from Pratteln station which had 4x trains an hour to Basel SBB station, so from leaving the hotel to being at the starting point of the day trips took only 20 mins.


It was also a 5 min walk from the hotel to a tram stop, a big bonus for fellow traveller, tram fan Paul, who’d suggested Switzerland in the first instance.

Having checked in we set off on a trip to Germany’s longest cable car ride, the Schauinsland which is near Freiburg

Paul is a Germanophile, so a trip over the border from Switzerland was a must. Freiburg is only 30 mins from Basel by ICE trains and an hour by the cheaper RE trains.
So that we could make the choice between these two options we headed for the German station in Basel, the Bad Bahnhof.



Two trams from the hotel took us to the station where we discovered that the price for a 2nd class return on the ICE train was a slightly alarming €41 return. 
We could have saved if we booked online in advance, but the equivalent of £35 for a journey of similar length to London-Reading made me suck my teeth. 
For half the price we could have taken the RE train, but the ICE got us to Freiburg an hour sooner.



The comfort of the ICE train also helped tipped the balance, its 2nd class eclipses 1st class on many other European trains, but the train to Freiburg was 10mins late. 

This was no surprise, as my personal tally for ICE train travel is now just one on time departure and arrival from 8 trips - #greatbutlate.




To be fair the train was late because the daily ICE from Basel to Amsterdam was having to commence its journey in Freibuirg. To save its passengers from being stranded, the following ICE, a train to Hamburg, had been held back by 10 minutes. 
Paul was able to translate all this, but non-German speakers heading for Amsterdam may have been oblivious.
A good example of putting a ThereByTrain top tip into practice, namely if the train you’re booked on doesn’t arrive and announcements are being made that you don’t understand, then seek out someone who can speak English. It can save you being stranded or wondering why the train you're taking hasn't arrived.

The journey was then interrupted by a visit to our compartment on the train by a German border patrol team and their brusque manner was a tad disconcerting, but a quick rummage through our bags proved that we weren’t up to no good.

With the help of Paul’s excellent German we were able to pick up a map of how to get to the Schauinsland from the info desk at Freiburg station. It had only taken me 5 mins to look up the details online, but the print out with all the precious info on it out was back in the hotel room.

The map told us to take a tram from the station, but we were left scratching our heads, as on exiting the front of the station, as there were none to be seen. It was only when we turned to head back to the info desk we realized that the trams were on a bridge that spanned the station platforms.
Freiburg is a comparatively small German city, but its public transport system would be undreamt of in a similar sized British location.



We had to change trams and then take a bus to the foot of the cable car, but the bus was timetabled to leave 2 mins after the tram’s arrival and of course it did.

We were at the cable car’s base station less than two hours after leaving the hotel. It had taken 4 trams, a train and bus to get there, but we hadn’t spent more than 5 mins at a tram or bus stop.


There were no queues for the cable car and  the ride was incredible, as were the giant slices of Black Forest gateau (well what else were going to order!) that were served in the cafĂ© at the top of the ride.




Arriving back in Freiburg, there was more ICE chaos with trains to Basel running around 45 mins late, but a dash through a subway enabled us to board one of these delayed trains with seconds to spare.

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