Death March to Tinguely Museum

I had a terrible day yesterday. Without going into the gory details, which would just lead into a lengthy rant about the Swiss and air conditioning, suffice it to say that there was a whole lot of pooping in pants, by BOTH children (no, I'm not joking), humidity, sweaty tram rides, damp laundry draped about, and fights where kids were touching each other. At the end of the day, I would have paid someone a million dollars to just take me home.

At the end of that terrible day, I said to Jim "Maybe tomorrow will be better." Apparently, the travel gods heard me and decided to strike me down.

The plan was beautifully simple. Everyone has raved about the Tinguely Museum. It has a lot of kinetic sculptures built by Basler Jean Tinguely, and many interactive exhibits. Although we were told it was great for a rainy day, a brilliant thought suddenly occurred to me. Air condition is banned in Basel, but cars, some trams and some buses still have it, so clearly there are exceptions. And everyone knows that museums are temperature controlled, right? Aha, I gloated to myself, let's visit the Tinguely tomorrow when we know it will be hot and we can stroll leisurely around in the cool air conditioning. Best of all, it will be FREE because the children are under 16 and I have a Swiss Pass!

I believed I had been to the Tinguely before -- at least, to the outside. There was a pool with lots of kinetic water sculptures in it next to a big building that I believed was the museum. I checked the website quickly but didn't really understand the directions -- they mentioned a bus, but I clearly recalled walking there the last time. So, the kids and I set off at about 10 am and got on the No.6 tram to Barfusserplatz, planning to hop onto a No.3 tram, which I believed would stop at the museum.

We got on the No.3 and within about 30 seconds passed the place I thought was the museum, so we hopped off at the next stop and walked about 5 blocks back to where the museum was. We stood for a while in the shade and admired the sculptures.




After about ten minutes, I started to lead the kids toward the entrance of the large building behind the pool and noticed a giant sign announcing "Theatre Basel." Yes, sadly, the scuplture pond was done by Tinguely for the theater and had nothing to do with the actual museum.

No problem, I thought. Basel is a relatively small town and almost everything is within walking distance. I vaguely remembered the the museum was near the Wettsteinbrucke (a bridge across the Rhine), so we hopped back on the No.3 and went ahead for a few more stops. Unfortunately, I could see we were heading away from the river, so we hopped off again and worked our way through alleys and back streets towards large bridge. Sure enough, as we approached the road to the bridge, there was a sign for the Tinguely Museum directing us straight ahead.

By this time, we were all getting hot from walking for about 20 minutes in the heat. The kids were already whining about when we could get a drink, and I promised we would get a cold drink at the museum as soon as we arrived. We walked about 4 blocks and saw... the bridge. No sign of a museum, nothing. I was confident the bridge was in Gross Basel and the bridge was leading us to Klein Basel (where our apartment is). I figured we would cross the bridge and see what the signage said on the other side. If there was something pointing us to the museum, we'd follow that, otherwise, we'd just head home.

It was nice and cool on the bridge, so that part of the walk was good. When we got to the other side of the river, there was a sign for the museum directing us to walk down the stairs to the path next to the river. We all rejoiced "Yay! We're at the museum!" By this time, we'd been walking for about 45 minutes -- that's a long time for two kids.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs, there was a sculptural playground. "This must be the museum playground!" said Lily. "Let's hurry up and go to the museum for our cool drink," I said (because I wanted to get in the AC as soon as possible). We wandered around the area for 10 minutes and saw nothing remotely resembling a museum. Then I glimpsed a small sign directing us toward the museum along a path by the Rhine.

"It's over here!" I said and we started down the path. We walked, and walked, and walked, and walked. My shirt front was soaked with sweat and even the kids were sweating. Periodically, we would pass a sign that directed us to the museum. We passed the hospital where Jack got his medical care, which I must note is about 5 blocks from our apartment. We kept going. "Is DIS the museum?" Jack asked every time we approached a new building. The answer was always no. After about 30 minutes of trudging, we came to a river boat landing that said "Tinguely Museum." "We're here!" I said. We looked around for a few minutes and found nothing but apartment buildings. "Let's walk up ahead," I said. "Is DIS the museum?" asked Jack. "Not yet," I said.

We trudged another 10 minutes and came to something called the Solitude Park. The river path ended abruptly. There was no sign suggesting where the museum might be, and the only buildings in sight were a preschool and Roche. "I'm really dizzy," said Jack. "I know," I said, "Let's see if we can find some place to get a drink." We walked across the park (the kids paused to go down a slide) and came out on the street, which turned out to be a four lane highway. There was nothing that looked like a museum or a place to get a drink. I saw a Roche security guard standing at the gate to the building and went over to him. I asked him in German where the museum was. "You go through the park," he said, pointing in the direction we came from. "Is DIS the museum?" Jack said. "No!" I said, "We have to go through the park."

We walked across the Solitude Park and came to a building -- a preschool. We walked a bit further and came to a middle school. We walked through some trees and finally Lily spotted a kinetic sculpture. "It's over here!"

When we got inside, it was mercifully air conditioned as I hoped. I showed my Swiss Pass when we approached the ticket counter and we were admitted for free. "Let's just go down to the restaurant and get something to eat." $52.30 Francs later (no, I'm not kidding), the kids having eaten a hotdog and fries and me having eaten quiche, we were ready to see the exhibit. The kids were really excited. I was just happy for the air conditioning.

We saw this:

and a few other non-moving exhibits of a similar nature. "Dis place is COOL," said Jack. Then we went up to the next floor and entered a room featuring a series of kinetic sculptures that you operated by stepping on a switch near the exhibit. The room was lit so that giant shadows of each sculpture were cast on the walls.

"Dis is a little SCARY," said Jack:




"I want to go to another museum!" said Jack when the last sculpture (shown above) began to whirl around. We headed downstairs to the next exhibit, which was a series of elaborate sets of armor and equally elaborate dresses.

"I don't like DOSE guys" said Jack, referring to the armor posed as if it were riding horses (above).
"DAT is SCARY!" said Jack when he noticed the mural of skeletons that went along the entire length of one wall.

"What DOSE guys doing, Mama?" he asked fearfully when we saw the group of armed men. "They have spears," I said. "I don't LIKE them. What is a SPEAR?" "A pointy stick," I said. "I want to go in another kind of museum," said Jack fearfully.



"I think these dresses are GORGEOUS!" said Lily and she asked me to take several pictures.

We both liked the red one.
Lily posed in front of a few.
Jack just kept asking when we were going to go to another kind of museum, so pretty soon we went to the bottom floor. The first two rooms had several sculptures that made noise. One of them was made out of a lot of drums. Jack screamed and ran when Lily started it up, so there was no time for me to take any pictures. We raced through the two rooms and ended up at the last room, where they had a series of sculptures set up that featured what looked like carnival lights.

Jack jumped about 3 feet and grabbed my hand when Lily made this giant hand move.

He kept a wide margin between himself and this horse sculpture. Lily wanted to climb up it and watch from inside while it moved. I knew Jack wasn't going to touch it with a 10 foot pole so I said no.

Jack's final comment: "I don't even KNOW what kind of fing DAT is," pointing to the scultpure above, that was hanging from the ceiling. "Can we go to a different kind of museum now?"

Interlaken, Grindelwald and Pfingstegg

Sorry this post took so long to put up, but there are a lot of pictures!

Last weekend, we bit the bullet and bought a five day Swiss Rail Pass for about $560 US. It allows Jim and I to travel on any train we like, anywhere we like, on five specific days we get to choose. We also got a Family Pass (included for free) so Jack and Lily can travel with us for free. The pass also gives us a 15% discount on most tourist activities and allows us in all museums for free.

For our first day of travel, we decided to mimic one of the package trips we saw in a brochure Jim picked up at the Swiss Embassy in New York. We got up bright and early, bought our pass, and hopped on a train to Interlaken Ost, a town at the foot of the Swiss Alps. The kids loved the train!




The train journey was about 2 hours, figuring in all of the stops in between, and we all enjoyed looking at all the sites out the windows. I think Jim got some video, but my camera doesn't capture moving scenes well, so I didn't bother to take pictures.

Interlaken Ost

We arrived at Interlaken Ost around 10 am. This is a picture of the railway station. Our first stop was a local cafe so we could get some breakfast -- it was too crazy trying to eat on the train because the choice was to eat in the dining car (and potentially lose our seats in the crowded 2d class compartment) or wait for the dining cart to come by (our choice, but the cart never came to our car). After eating, we stopped at the Coop (a chain of cooperative markets) and picked up so food and drinks for later so we wouldn't get stuck without food again.

This picture is a beautiful fountain in the square near the train station. A thin layer of water flows over the top and down the sides. Jack was fascinated by it!

Grindelwald

Our pass allows us to just get on any train without reservations or tickets, so we hopped on the next train to Grindelwald, which is at the base of the Alps. I couldn't get over how stereotypically "Swiss" everything looked there, and wondered which came first -- the look of the town or the outside world's stereotype of a Swiss mountain village. Probably a bit of both! The above picture is a view from the train station towards the Alps, which were obscured by some low clouds.

We had to walk about 15 minutes to get to the next leg of our journey, which was a cable car to an outlook point on the mountain above Grindelwald, called Pfingstegg. I took a few pictures on our walk. The above is another view as we walk towards the Alps.

And another view as we got closer.
I loved this little chalet because it had the stereotypical window boxes filled with bright flowers and a big row of Swiss cowbells hung on the porch. Lily and I ended up buying a small bell for our Christmas tree. It has nostalgic significance for me, because when my Aunt visited Switzerland when I was small, she brought a similar bell home for me.

This is the church that was our landmark -- we walked until we came to the church and then we turned right. I love the architecture.


As we got closer to the cable cars, I was able to get some better shots of the mountains.

I wish the weather had been better, but we've had a lot of cloudy days here. Jim's coworkers have told him that July is the nicest month for weather here, but that this summer has been unusually cloudy.


Here we are about to get on the cable car at Grindelwald.

The kids loved this part of the journey, too!

Pfingstegg
Once we arrived at the outlook, Pfingstegg, we took a quick bathroom break. The signs on the building and on each door were hilarious. It's hard to see in this picture, but the mens' room had a picture of a man facing away, as if he were peeing, and a woman with her skirt lifted squatting! I felt a little weird photographing it until I saw several other tourists doing the same.

The primary reason Jim wanted to go to Pfingstegg was to ride on the Rodelbahn, which is a summer bobsled. This sign and weird carved face showed us the way.

As well as a small restaurant with a terrific patio view of the valley, Pfingstegg had lots for kids to do, including a trampoline, a slide, a swingset and a sandbox. I had some other pictures to post of those, but apparently they didn't get uploaded here. There were some pigs that lived up there -- Lily loved them and was excited to see them, but Jack was a little afraid. I carried him up near the pigs and he said "Too close!"

Here are my little kid and my giant kid on the Rodelbahn. There wasn't a good vantage point to get a picture of them when they were cruising around. This is at the very beginning. Jim bought 4 rides -- two adults and 2 children. Since both of the kids wanted to go with him, I waited at the top. Jim had so much fun, he bought 4 more rides and they did it again. I was kind of relieved not to have to go!

This is Lily pretending to be Cocolino. Cocolino is a cat with a fried egg eye patch who cooks with his little brother and sister. They are apparently characters in a popular series of books called Kuchen mit Cocolino (Cooking with Cocolino) - the books present a series of simple recipes for children. They had a little Cocolino play area next to the Rodelbahn that featured a place you could play Cocolino's theme song and add percussion. The theme song part was broken....


...but that didn't stop the kids from playing percussion!

After investigating all of the activities at Pfingstegg, we took a break and had cheese, fruit and cold drinks on a little bench set up overlooking the valley. This is Lily posing in front of the view.

And here's a view of the mountaintops from our bench.

The town of Grindelwald from the bench.

And, last but not least, my feet to give you and idea of how close we were to the edge.

All in all, it was a fun trip. We have so much flexibility with the train pass that we could pick and choose when to get our next train connection. That allowed us to take our time and really look at things without worrying about a deadline. The trains between Grindelwald and Interlaken Ost, and Interlaken and Basel run fairly frequently all day long.

I did check out a yarn store in Grindelwald, but it carried a rather boring stock of Regia, Opal and Lana Grossa. So no yarn purchases for now. Jim did pick up a jack knife (Swiss Army, of course). It has an orange peeler as one of its many features. Jim commented on how handy that was, and my response was "Yeah, I can't tell you how many times I've been out alone with just an orange and a regular knife and thought 'Gee, if only I had an oranger peeler and could get this orange open!"

Out and About

Eating our $50 McDonald's Meal:



They do provide a better healthy choice with the Happy Meal here -- apple slices and grapes, with NO caramel dipping sauce! The kids enjoyed smiling with apple rind teeth.

Jack Bustin' a Move:





All I wanted was to take a picture of the two kids in front of the plant. I'm not sure why Jack felt it was necessary to gangsta rap.

The Tram in Clarastrasse:





We can get just about everywhere in and around Basel by tram. All visitors to Switzerland are given free "mobility passes" to use the trams. Most of the trams are just plain green, but some have ads and other decoration painted on them. This is the "I Love You" tram. Clarastrasse is the station nearest our hotel, and we can catch several trams from there. We are also within walking distance to Claraplatz, a big shopping area (they have H & M there, for example) and a major tram hub.

The Claramatte Park:







This park was recommended to me by one of the Ravelers in the Swiss Knitting group I joined. It has a huge wooden play structure with rope ladders, slides, several different kinds of swings, and all sorts of hidey holes. The kids just love it. Iy also has a wading pool with water spouts, but I'm not sure how often that's open. It was on the first day we went to the park and hasn't been on since.

Toy Museum:















These are all photos of the Toy Museum we visited. It was a 20 minute tram ride out of the city. We saw a lot of beautiful farms and little towns on the way and the kids really enjoyed the ride. The museum shows toys from the earliest times -- made from bone, sticks and stones -- all the way up to some modern toys. It was a very nice place with two play rooms on different floors set up with toys for kids to actually play with (probably to give moms and dads a chance to actually see the exhibits). It is housed in a big manor house with stone spiral stairs and these gorgeous tiled fireplaces and painted walls.