Europe 1987
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan 2018
We left Freiburg in glorious sunshine to drive along back roads to the city of Basel, which is located on the Rhine River just across the border from Germany in Switzerland. We stopped for a while to explore the old city centre of Basel, during which Di easily fulfilled her goal for the day, which was to find a Mothercare store. Her aim was to buy some nappies, but disappointingly they didn’t have any. Nonetheless, Liesl benefitted by getting a new skirt and shorts that were on sale.
After almost bankrupting ourselves buying a small amount of food for lunch (Switzerland being markedly more expensive than anywhere else we had visited), we strolled down to the Rhine River near the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois to eat it while admiring the views of the river, the historic Mittlere Brücke (Middle Bridge) and the bustling river traffic.
We finished with some expensive ice creams and then headed off towards the south-east to Lucerne (also referred to as Luzern), avoiding the motorways and taking the back roads. We found our Youth Hostel on the corner of Sedelstrasse and Jugiweg near Rotsee at about 4:00pm, and checked in.
We had plenty of daylight left, so we drove to Hergiswil, the small town that has the station at the bottom of the rack railway line up to the summit of Mount Pilatus. We decided not to go up today because there was insufficient time to do it justice, but resolved to do so tomorrow.
We returned to the Youth Hostel where we had a large meal – unlike the size of our room, which was tiny and very cramped. After dinner, we enjoyed a short walk down to Rotsee, the large lake just below the Youth Hostel.
Day 40
Freiburg to Lucerne
Friday 21 August 1987
