This chimeric fountain stands on Freiestrasse at the corner where Münsterberg leads up to the cathedral. It sports four basilisks, each spouting its own stream of water, a column incorporating a Doric lower part and a Corinthian style capital, three dolphins and a trident, hardly a cohesive combination. But perhaps that suits the jumble of branded merchants that crowd Basel’s most fashionable retail street.

It was built in 1837 by the Swiss architect Melchior Berri, who also designed the world’s first tri-coloured stamp, Die Basler Dybli (The Basel Dove). The stamp was issued by the Basel city canton in 1845 for letters up to 15 grams to be delivered within the city and cost two and a half Rappen (100ths of a Swiss Franc); because only around 40,000 copies were printed, originals are now worth over A$20,000.

In this shot, Basel’s gold man is also visible, a performance busker regularly seen around the touristed areas. His little gold mechanical bulldog barks, jumps or wriggles enthusiastically whenever coins are dropped into its tin, making it seem astoundingly aware; it is most likely controlled via a wire hidden in the leash.

As Christmas approached, Basel’s open public spaces filled with bundled christmas trees. The salesmen had long measuring poles upon which the prices for trees of various heights were listed. We bought a specially designed stand and Mark embarked on his first ever christmas tree purchase. The man on Petersplatz was amazed to learn that his customer had never had a real tree for christmas before (plastic ones being the norm in Sydney), and helpfully gave advice on the features of the three species on offer, the best technique for carrying it, and how to dispose of it (the local council makes a special collection round early in the new year, carting away close to one tree per household from the entire city). Mark followed the advice and ended up with what were really only minor scratches to his forearm; although one does wonder about the hospitalisation rates arising from christmas tree injuries.

Despite moving into our new address just three weeks before Christmas, a few friends and family managed to send us cards and gifts, which was a delightful surprise. The tree was duly decorated (with a Die Sendung mit der Maus motif, as can be seen at right), the gifts were placed beneath it, and, to complete the picture, enough snow fell to cover the ground, at least briefly.

The weekend before Christmas, we were invited to a fondue and games night by a local living in Rheinfelden. This is about 20km up river from Basel, and since Mark’s father had borrowed the car to drive to Austria, we used Mobility, the Swiss car-sharing scheme, to get there. With two small kids, this is somewhat involved: the car must be collected from its parking spot and brought home to have car seats installed, and the same procedure needs to be reversed afterwards. Everything went smoothly, with the boys going to sleep in the guest room part-way through the party, and dozing off in the car on the way home. But in the rush to get them into their beds without too much rousing, we forgot to take out the car seats. It wasn’t until shortly before midnight, as Mark locked the car at the parking spot and was about to mount his bike for the ride home, that he noticed the two car seats still in the car. Since the seats are too heavy to carry together, he had to call Mobility and rebook the car for an additional half-hour.

Meantime, Mark’s father collected Mark’s sister Susie, and her friend Alexandra, from Leogang in Austria, and then drove up to Ludwigsburg for Christmas lunch at Marion’s parents’ house. We used another Mobility car to join them there. With Marion’s brother and sister-in-law, plus their children, the total number of guests was 12. So naturally there were enough presents changing hands to slow Santa’s sleigh to a crawl. Wiki and Loxon, fresh from a round of unwrapping at home, began to forget that not getting presents was the normal state of affairs.

For the first time in nine years of living together, we didn’t throw a New Years Eve party; in fact, we went to bed at around 9pm. We were awoken by the sound of distant bells shortly before midnight, mostly because Loxon was complaining about them (his hearing is much better than ours). After they ceased, we resettled Loxon, and Mark was on his way back to bed at around 12:30am when the fireworks began. They were hard to miss because one of the launch platforms was on the river bank directly opposite our apartment. It turns out that the Basel cathedral holds a special mass shortly after midnight on New Year’s Eve, which is why the bells had come and gone, and why the fireworks didn’t start until 30 minutes into the New Year — the religious service gets precedence over the privately funded pyrotechnics.

Although some heavy snowfalls had passed through Basel, our proximity to the warming influence of the river meant that there was never enough to build anything approaching a snowman. Having promised the boys there would be one, we drove out of Basel on New Year’s Day and up into the hills. The small town of Gempen nestles at the crest of a pass some 10km south and it had a couple of inches of snow on the ground, which, with a bit of scrounging, we managed to turn into a snowman — well a snow dwarf anyway. The boys thus satisfied, we headed home again.

The following weekend was Cousin Lea’s birthday, so we drove up to Mannheim for the celebration. Since Marion’s sister had spent Christmas with her in-laws, there were even more Christmas presents for Loxon and Wiki, confirming that normal life indeed consisted primarily of receiving gifts. It took at least another two weeks for this expectation to wear down, before Aunty Marina turned up to perpetuate the myth. But describing that can wait until the next post.

Standing at the heart of Kleinbasel, this fountain was a gift from the people of Baden (the nearby German state) in gratitude for humanitarian aid provided by the Swiss after the Second World War. It was built in 1954 by the German sculptor Wilhelm Gerstel, and depicts the legendary maiden from Switzerland’s oldest folk song, Vreneli, carrying a flower.

She stands in front of the early 14th century church of St. Clara, amid the busy traffic of numerous tram and bus lines. But by standing high above the ground, she manages to transcend the bustle and instead always brings peace to mind.

It’s been a while since the last post on The Basilisk’s Gaze because we’ve been on holiday. We drove around southern France, as well as to Barcelona and Lake Como, with much excitement along the way. But news of that holiday will have to wait because, having persisted this far, we want to continue in chronological order. Now that we are past the initial cultural adjustment of settling into Switzerland, the pace should increase and it won’t be long before we catch up to the present.

In the previous post we covered Christmas, and the flood of presents that came with it; a couple of weeks later Aunty Marina and Sheryl came to visit, bringing still more gifts. Given Marina’s penchant for the ancient world, it was necessary to visit Basel’s Antiquities Museum to look at their extensive collection of Etruscan artifacts. Thick glass separated Loxon and Wiki from the daggers and spears, but there were plenty of fragile ancient jugs and vases in danger, and opprobrium from the museum attendants was palpable. Eventually Loxon found a gap beneath one glass barrier and reached under to set off the alarm. The attendants enthusiastically showed us the way as we hurried out.

Marina and Sheryl headed off for the rest of their tour of Europe and a week later Mark’s cousin Chantelle dropped by. With her we drove the 15 minutes down to Dornach for a look at the curious Goetheanum, a building with a perverse aversion to right angles. This centre of learning was designed and built by Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the spiritual movement Anthroposophy (you may have heard of the Waldorf schooling system based on his teachings).

While Chantelle was in town, the festival of the Vogel Gryff took place. This is a prelude to Basel’s biggest annual event, the Fasnacht carnival, to which we will certainly have a post devoted at some point. The Fasnacht is organised by a collection of honorable societies. Three of these in Kleinbasel, that is on the north-east side of the river, have mascots called the Vogel Gryff (the griffin), the Leu (the lion) and the Wild Maa (the wild man) respectively. On the day of the Vogel Gryff festival, these three characters appear, and march through Kleinbasel performing dances for various elected officials of the societies.

First, the Wild Maa comes down the river on a raft, dancing all the way as small cannons are fired around him. He then meets the other two for more dancing, accompanied by a band of drummers. They even do a dance on the Mittlere Brücke (middle bridge), but they are careful never to face the Grossbasel side of the river — a consequence of the rivalry between the two half cities. The whole process is naturally electrifying for small children, who run after the procession with wild eyes. Loxon and Wiki were especially intrigued when the Vogel Gryff “took his head off” and stepped into a local restaurant for some well-earned sustenance. But the event was a mere hint of what was to come in Fasnacht itself.

Meanwhile, we were still waiting to get the phone and internet connected to our permanent apartment. This finally happened in mid-February, a total of 13 weeks after we had ordered it, despite the initial estimate of three weeks (yes, even that is long, but it seems to be standard here). The telecom sector has officially been deregulated in Switzerland, but the old government operator, Swisscom, retains heavy controls over their competitors when it comes to house connections. This combined with the ineptitude of our provider’s customer service, and the utter sluggishness of anything technical over Christmas here, to drag out the process beyond all expectations.

At numerous points, we were ready to give up and start all over again with Swisscom, but there were always explanations for the delays and promises that all would be right in two more weeks. In total, Mark spent over 8 hours on his mobile phone to customer service (Marion tells him he should be grateful to them for all that practice speaking German), over an hour visiting their shop to see if twins destroying their premises might convince them to try harder, and over two hours working with technicians as they tested the wiring in our apartment. In all, he interacted with twenty different representatives across five different business units. As the previous tenant of our apartment quipped when he learnt of the delay, “sounds more like Zimbabwe than like the middle of Europe”. When we did finally get connected, it felt as though we had gained entry to Kafka’s Das Schloß.

This beautiful casting of the Vogel Gryff, eponymous mascot for the Vogel Gryff festival, stands near the main entrance of the Waisenareal. It was a gift from the Foundation Basler-Höhenklinik, marking the centenary of the Basler Sanatorium in Davos which was set up by a group of Basel doctors in 1886. The sanatorium was the first hospital for those tuberculosis sufferers unable to pay for their own treatment, which subsequently became a model for such public sanatoria all over Europe. Every childcare day we pass him as we enter and leave, a whimsical reminder of the importance of imagination in everyday life.

Fasnacht, the Basel carnival, took place in early March, turning everything upside down. But in the interests of catching up, we’ll postpone our description of it until next year when it will happen again in all its madness.

The week after Fasnacht, we undertook our first family skiing trip, driving across Switzerland to Damüls, Austria, where Sabine, Edgar and Lea were also skiing. Damüls is allegedly the snowiest town in the world, averaging 9.3 metres of fresh snow per winter. Given about 20 centimetres fell every day we were there, it is easy to believe. We had no trouble building an igloo using the snow on our balcony, even though the balcony only measured about 3 by 1 metres and was covered by an eave.

Loxon and Wiki tried their first pairs of skiboots and skis, and lined up for lessons. In theory, parents could drop off their kids and head out to ski themselves, an idea that had both Marion and Mark dreaming of gliding away over smooth snow in an ecstacy of freedom. In practice, things were rather different. Although Wiki and Loxon were keen on the idea of skiing, it turned out to involve much more effort than they had expected, and they were soon tired and emotional little skiers. This meant that Mark and Marion were required to remain with the class for support. If that sounds like your idea of fun, try crawling around on your hands and knees in the snow, lifting up 15 kilo kids every 30 seconds and having helmeted heads smash alternately into your stomach and then your groin at high speed for, oh say, an hour. After a few days of this we were ready to go home for a holiday. But at least the snow was powdery and beautiful, and we did get to do some skiing too.

Wiki and Loxon also made plenty of progress. They can now stay standing as a gentle slope accelerates them to rib-cracking speed, and even make turns, if a little unpredictably. Perhaps this year they’ll work out how to brake as well. They were proud to participate in the class race at the end of the week, for which they were announced as the Australian contingent. And neither of them laughed even once as giant blue bunny rabbits handed them their medals.

Unfortunately, March ended on a low note when Wiki got his hand caught in our apartment door. Loxon was waiting outside and decided to pull the door closed just as Wiki reached out to grab the door from the inside. For insulation reasons, Swiss doors are cut extremely precisely to match their frames. The tip of Wiki’s right ring finger was almost sliced away as a result.

So it was that we came to test the emergency unit of Basel’s children’s hospital, where Wiki waited patiently for about 6 hours for an operating theatre. He then had 6 stitches under general anaesthetic to neatly sew his fingertip back on. The first time he awoke after the surgery, he screamed at the top of his voice until the nurse pumped some more anaesthetic into him. The second time, Mark had some string puzzles to show him as he came to. Thus distracted, he regained full conciousness without distress and was able to go home for the night. It took another six weeks of doctor visits and disinfectant baths before his hand was back to normal. The only sign left of the injury now is a small scar across the pad of his finger.

Presiding over Marktplatz, the central square of Basel, the town hall for Basel city is a majestic red. The façade seen here is part of the original building, commenced in 1504, after Basel city joined the Swiss Confederation in 1501. The clock and the golden turret just visible in the upper right, were also part of the original building.

The colourful murals were painted by Hans Bock the Older starting in 1608, after the building had been significantly extended. In 1898, a further extension and renovation began, bringing the building to its current form. The guardsman statue seen here is a replica of the original from 1504, which now stands in the inner courtyard to protect it from the weather — imagine how relieved he feels about that, given he is over 500 years old.

In April, Uncle Andrew (Loxon’s god-parent, and just as good as a real uncle) came to visit, and the boys were extremely excited to see him. They showed him around Basel, with particular attention to the playgrounds of course. While he was here, the annual Basel bike market was held, and we all went to see if we could find a bike for Marion. This market is enormous with hundreds of bikes brought in by owners in the morning, each with a price attached. Buyers then browse row upon row of bikes and get the opportunity to test-ride them on a large circuit before choosing. Although we weren’t the earliest arrivals, Marion did find an excellent Swiss bicycle in bright red, complete with hub dynamo lights and integrated wheel-lock.

In Switzerland, all bikes are required to display a small sticker, called a vignette, with the current year on it. These are purchased each year for about 6 Francs and certify that the bike is insured against third-party damage in an accident.

At Easter, we went to Marion’s parents in Ludwigsburg where all six cousins engaged in an Easter egg hunt. Some eggs were easy to find but somewhat risky to retrieve, as you can see above. Naturally, it was Loxon whose boundless enthusiasm led to him falling in the pond.

In June, the boys went on their first trip away from family, catching the train to a summer camp in Langenbruck (up in the mountains about 45 minutes from Basel) with all their classmates at the childcare. Three nights away from Mama and Papa was daunting, but given it was to be a pirate camp there was no question of missing it. And, as luck would have it, the pirates discovered treasure in the forest. Wiki is in yellow, third from left in the second row; and Loxon is in dark and light blue, fourth from right in the first row. They do all look rather menacing. On coming home the boys reported, in tones of fascination, that even pirates have to brush their teeth. Who would have thought it?

The summer flew by and soon it was August 1st, Swiss National Day. We held a party to watch the fireworks from our balcony. Basel’s fire boat put on a stunning display below us, turning on all its water guns to shoot vast columns of water into the air. And much more elegant than the fireworks, was the release of thousands of lampions (miniature hot-air balloon lanterns), which swept into the sky in an enormous flickering bloom.

At the end of August we took our first family train holiday, going to Berlin and Potsdam to visit Derya. We took an overnight couchette and the boys loved settling down to sleep in the train. The ten hour journey zipped by as we slept and we all felt fresh as we arrived in Berlin in the morning. Only another two hours later we were swimming in Potsdams’ sun-laden Heiliger See, where Wiki and Loxon were nonplussed by the nudists.

Berlin’s new main train station is stunning, with cylindrical glass lifts shooting between floating platforms. In many cases, you can gaze out at the nearby Bundestag (German parliament) while you await your train. We also visited Oranienburgerstrasse, where the infamous anarchists’ squat, Tacheles, still inhabits the ruin of an antique shopping mall. Wiki and Loxon even got to witness our favourite dragon sculptures (blackened iron and steel) breathing their fire (it’s no longer on automatic, so ask the waiter at the bar to activate it for you).

We also visited Berlin’s Labyrinth Kindermuseum (children’s museum), where guests are invited to wear distorting goggles while exploring a maze. And we checked out the German Foreign Registry at Standesamt 1 (the official place of issue of Wiki and Loxon’s German birth certificates given they were born in Australia). In the meantime, we found Potsdamerplatz unrecognisable, and barely worth visiting these days, especially given that Alexanderplatz still oozes its menacing GDR atmosphere and architecture.

This ponderous creature, standing about 7m high and more than 20m long, inhabits a park in Münchenstein just to the south of Basel. The park, called Grün 80 (Green 80), was created for the second Swiss Exhibition for Gardening and Landscaping in 1980. It adjoins the Brüglingen Botanical Gardens and features lakes, sculpted hills, childrens’ play areas and sculptures. It is maintained by a grant from the Swiss conglomerate Migros. The dinosaur was also built for the show in 1980, but had to be rebuilt for its 25th birthday because it had rusted through. As you can imagine, he cuts quite an imposing figure up close, and the kids love him, of course.

September is birthday month for our family, beginning with the boys. After the excitement of the pirate summer camp, it was obvious what theme their birthday party would have, and invitations were sent out to all of Wiki and Loxon’s favourite pirate friends. Three weeks before the appointed date there was a council collection, so Mark went out to see what materials could be scavenged. He was surprised by what he found. There was a storage unit, whose ribbed canvas walls were perfect for a sail; the backing panels of an Ikea wardrobe, which flexed easily to form the hull of a ship; and even a costume hand-hook. With the aid of some sawing, a few screws and a marker pen, the ship shown at right was quickly assembled. Uncle Jürgen lent us a fantastic ship’s wheel and rope, while Aunt Sabine furnished the pirate flag. Given the zero budget, we were delighted with the result.

Thirteen dead-keen, albeit diminuitive, pirates duly appeared on the day, demanding entertainment with startling ferocity. So as soon as all the pirates had made scary drawings on their hats, we embarked on a journey across the high seas. The sails were hoisted, the anchor raised, and we set course for Thailand. Strangely enough, upon arriving there we sighted a party that looked suspiciously like parents sipping their wine. They were soon sent cowering, however, by volleys of our cannonballs.

Next came the tattoos and then the treasure hunt, which involved following shapes marked on the map (see above) to find scrolls. These were hidden all over the garden and eventually led to the sandpit. Who could possibly have guessed that the treasure chest would be buried there? And, after it was laboriously dug out, it yielded eye masks, bubble blowers, pirate badges and chocolate gold coins, all neatly divided into fifteen portions. This fortunate coincidence averted fighting over the spoils — well for the most part, anyway.

Meanwhile, back on board ship, a pair of shark piñata dangled from the rigging, waiting to be whacked. They proved stubborn, resisting several rounds of determined pirate bashings, but did eventually crack open, strewing jelly treats and still more gold coins to the eager scrounging pirates. And finally it was time to head home for cake, rounding out a hearty day of pirate adventure.

This menacing figure is one of four basilisks that were cast by Ferdinand Schlöth in 1879 to stand on the four corners of the Wettsteinbrücke, one of Basel’s six bridges over the Rhine. She now guards the entrance to Lange Erlen, a local forest that straddles the border between Switzerland and Germany. At around two metres in height and weighing 2.5 tonnes, she provokes a visceral impact.

All four basilisks were removed from the bridge in 1936 when it was widened, but you can see how they were originally positioned in this 1913 postcard. When the old bridge was replaced in 1991, one of the statues was repurchased by the city and returned to its plinth on the south-east corner of the bridge; it is that one which provides the image on the banner of this travelogue. A third one sits in the garden of a music centre in Basel, while the fourth is in Meggen on Lake Lucerne. It is possible to visit all four in this day-trip, which also provides some history on their movements since 1936.

In October, we packed the car and headed out on a driving tour across Southern France to Barcelona. Our first stop was Geneva, where we stayed with our friends Carol and Nathaniel. They, and their kids Oscar and Pascale, treated us to lovely food and wine, much of it from just across the border in France. They also took us to a wonderful restaurant in France, halfway up a mountain pass, called Le Refuge de Florimont, which had views over Lake Geneva to Mont Blanc (alas, the clouds prevented us from seeing the famous peak).

We also dropped in on Patrick and Lisa, in the nearby French village of Thoiry. Along with their kids, we saw the local festival of St Maurice, which included a fascinating parade (one group comprised six locals plodding along together on a single pair of giant skis). Children were given helium balloons to release with their names and addresses attached, and Wiki’s managed to reach a friendly grandmother in Bordeaux some 500km away on the opposite side of France.

We then drove across the south-east corner of France to the fishing village of Meze, situated beside a large lagoon on the mediterranean coast — it’s near Montpelier. The weather was still warm enough to spend time on the beach, and the boys collected shells, splashed about in the shallows and just lounged around (as seen at right) much like their parents.

After a couple of days of sunshine, we followed the coast around to Barcelona, taking a short side-trip to see the enormous castle at Carcasonne, a world heritage site. The walls of the medieval fort surround an entire small town, which, although inhabited by a warren of tourist shops, is well restored and stunning in scale.

In Barcelona, we stayed with David and Laura, whose three children bracket ours in age. The five kids had great fun together, especially attending the Festa Major de Sarrià (an annual parade held by the local village). Four metre tall figures danced, along with dragons who breathed real fire via natural gas nozzles. There were also fun rides, as shown at left.

While in Barcelona, we also caught up with Carina, one of our German helpers from Sydney — she’s living there now — and we had a wonderful lunch with Ana (we last visited her nine years ago on our way through Braga, Portugal). Alas, on a trip to see the Sagrada Familia, Mark’s wallet was pick-pocketed on the metro, leading to several hours spent at police stations and calling credit card issuers.

We then headed back, via Meze once more, to Avignon, where we stayed in a 16th century hunting lodge that’s been converted into a luxurious bed and breakfast, Domaine de Rhodes. The owners, Françoise & Paco, have done a fantastic job of renovating the place, and share formal breakfast with their guests in the ornate dining room. They even lent us their bicycles so that we could ride around the Île de la Barthelasse on which the lodge stands in the Rhone river. We twice had dinner outdoors at a restaurant on the banks of the river, with views to the papal palace and the remaining arches of the Saint Bénézet bridge (made famous in the French children’s song Sur le pont d’Avignon).

From there we headed south to the fortified village of Les Baux de Provence, which makes good use of the jagged terrain to create an impregnable defensive position. It has an impressive collection of medieval siege engines, including the largest trebuchet in Europe (which can throw a 100kg stone more than 180 metres) and the battering ram shown here. We couldn’t stay long though — giving Wiki and Loxon enough time to figure out that these machines actually worked could have led to destruction beyond even their normally wanton standards.

Our next stop was Vence, a town in the hills above Nice, where we stayed with Karina and Slah, and their son Eskander (pictured below with Wiki). As usual, Slah prepared delectable food for us all, and showed us around the charming old part of the town. Reminiscent of our visit to nearby St-Paul-de-Vence some ten years earlier, it was filled with narrow stone alleys and beautiful art galleries, but is far less touristed.

On our second afternoon in Vence we had the only substantial rain of the holiday, and decided to take the boys out in their gumboots to a local park. Loxon climbed into the fork of a small olive tree, then slipped in his boots and fell less than a metre onto asphalt. Unfortunately, this was enough to fracture his elbow — a hairline crack through the growth plate of his ulna.

At the hospital in Cagnes-sur-Mer that evening, the x-rays didn’t show the fracture, but the doctor on duty decided to put on a cast anyway, and told us to visit a paediatric hospital in Nice the next day. That turned out to be the Hôpital Lenval, where Angelina Jolie had her twins delivered in 2008. Here new x-rays were taken in which the surgeon found the break, and a new cast was put on. Loxon tolerated the waiting and a great deal of pain well, while we felt guilty about having let him climb in gumboots. On the other hand it is astonishing, given Loxon’s cavalier approach to physical risk and pain, that he reached the age of four before he broke his first bone. Time will tell whether this will slow him down, or simply be the first of a long sequence.

It was then time to head home via Italy, braving the narrow, winding highway along the Mediterranean coast, with mad Italian drivers who seemed to have a different interpretation of lane markings from that found in other countries. What with getting stuck in peak hour traffic while skirting Milan, it took five hours driving to reach Lake Como. We had booked a room with views over the lake in Torno, and thought we knew how to get there based on Google Maps. On our arrival after dark, we discovered that it was impossible to reach the hotel by car — but not before we had attempted to drive down a barely car-width laneway which ended at the top of a flight of stairs. Thankfully a local helped us turn around by opening their gate.

The following morning dawned in beautiful sunshine, and we packed the car for the final three hours drive home. We drove up into Switzerland with views across sunny Lakes Como, Lugano and Maggiore, to reach the entrance to the St Gotthard tunnel. At 16.4km long, it is the world’s third longest road tunnel (for twenty years it was the longest). It takes more then twelve minutes to drive through it, which is an eternity when you are staring at identical round tunnel walls. When we entered the tunnel at the south end, the sky was clear and it was reasonably warm. When we exited on the north side, a fog had closed in and it was near freezing. We didn’t see the sun again on the rest of the way home. It was like leaving summer behind on the other side of the mountains and entering winter. But then the alps are the largest mountain range in Europe — it’s not surprising the weather can differ so dramatically on either side.