Churches of Basel—Storks—Rheinfelden—Frick—Baden—Zurich: the Cathedral—Fondness of the Swiss for Bright Colours—Lake of Zurich—Rapperswyl—Linth Canal—A Wayside Inn—Wesen.
AT Basel we engaged a voiturier to take us to Baden, whence the only Swiss railway was to have the privilege of conveying us to Zurich. Our scheme for reaching Italy was to pass by the lakes of Zurich and Wallenstadt, and then, following the valley of the Rhine, to cross over the pass of the Splügen to Chiavenna, and so to reach Lake Como.
We left Basel at two o’clock in the afternoon, hoping to reach Baden by about nine; the weather looked threatening, but we took a cheerful view of this, as of everything else, as all good travellers should, and comforted ourselves with the thought that at any rate we could better afford to have a wet day between Basel and Baden than between Zurich and the Splügen.
The view of the city as you leave it is certainly very striking; the cathedral spires are picturesque in their outline, and the number of churches with turrets and steep roofs combine with them to produce a most ecclesiastical-looking town. Nor need any one interested in architecture despair of finding much pleasure in a more careful inspection of its buildings. They are full of interest, though generally passed too rapidly by people in a hurry to get on to enjoy the pleasures which await them beyond.
The roofing of the cathedral is worthy of notice as being composed of variously coloured tiles, arranged in diamond patterns over the surface of the roof, and giving a degree of richness to the colouring of this generally heavy part of the building which is very admirable.
In another fine church of the early part of the fourteenth century here, I remember being amused to see how quietly the storks possess themselves of all kinds of places for their nests, and think even the ridge of the steep roof of a church a proper place for their abode. The good people at Basel build their chimneys with flat tops for the express benefit of their long-legged friends; who, from their elevated and well-warmed abodes, look down sedately, and with a well-satisfied air upon their unfledged brethren below.
Why the people here love storks, the people of Venice pigeons, and the people of Berne bears, I leave to more industrious inquirers to decide, satisfied only to notice the fact that it is so, as each of these fancies adds one to the list of local peculiarities so valuable in the recollections of a journey.
The road from Basel to Baden is for the first half of the way very pretty; we came in, unfortunately, for rather drenching rain, and so lost all beyond the suggestion of some striking views. The towns through which we passed were not of much interest, though there were many picturesque and pleasant-looking subjects for the pencil. The most striking place on the road was Rheinfelden, a largish village (or perhaps I ought to say small town, as it rejoices in a Rath-haus of some pretension), surrounded by very high walls, and entered by tall stone gate-towers, pierced with pointed arches, and surmounted by upper stages of timber, with tiled roofs of quaint and effective character; and here and at Stein and Baden I noticed that almost all the houses were old and very little altered. I observed particularly the old shop-windows of very simple design, closed with folding shutters, and taking one back to old times most decidedly in their design.
