12/7/24 To Basel

 

    Up with the sun this morning - 4:30am - we have a train to catch at 6:30am , we're off to Switzerland via Germany . What an interesting day we were going to have , a train to Dusseldorf , then a train down the Rhine Valley to Basel in Switzerland , tickets & seats booked in 1st class to get a good carriage with large windows for viewing - excellent , what could go wrong ?? Our Bolt driver arrived 10mins early , going well so far , we get to the train station with plenty of time to spare , walk around to our platform      ( the furthest from drop-off ) , and get on board and settle in to our seats . Off we go on time , scenery wasn't great , but not bad either , and we seemed to get to Dusseldorf in no time . We get off and go to our platform & wait for our train to arrive - EC9 a panoramic ride down the Rhine River Valley . Several announcements were made as we waited , we had just over an hour changeover time , so we were ready to go . Coming close to our time to leave and our train hadn't arrived , had a look around , trains on different platforms , but not ours . One train looked to have panoramic windows and , oh look , it has EC9 on it , and it's just pulling away from the platform beside us !!!! Hmmm , what to do , there's an information post with a press to speak button , I quickly pressed the button and spoke reasonably calmly to a gentleman on the other end , explained our situation and waited for a response . He was quick , and said get on the train that has just pulled up on the platform we were waiting on , take it to Mannheim and change to a train to Basel , no problems . After a second or 2 , it sunk in and we rushed over and got on , sat in 2nd class and took off down the tracks . This train wasn't the scenic version , but , it was a very fast train - we got up to 300km/hr at one point - fairly zinging along . We arrive at Mannheim , and as it would happen , we arrived well before the EC9 did , so we waited and got onto the EC9 and found our booked seats and calmly sat down and enjoyed the rest of the trip to Basel . We went through sun & rain along the way , and I was too lazy to pull the camera out , so used the phone for a few photo's instead . Here's our first class carriage .

    Now for some rain .

     Here a are some wheat fields , these are large ones , must be a couple of acres in size !!

     An interesting shot of a random fence that appeared just as I pressed the button .

    Another of the scenery just as a tree appears 😆

    Closer to Basel and there are a lot of vineyards around .

     Now some blurry sweet corn 😂

    And finally we arrive in Basel , the scenery isn't moving anymore 🤣 , here we are at Basel Train Station .

    Our heads were still rocking later in the evening , every time we closed our eyes it seemed like we were rocking side to side . So that was an exciting day , stressful , yes indeed , but with a fast train ride thrown in wasn't too bad . The Rhine Valley will have to wait until next time maybe ??? Here's a map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1h9nHz0WwJ-AZ4KrUqMkrnfyOu8OiFD8&usp=sharing