Meltingen to Grellingen

Today was a beautiful day for a hike! My friend and I decided to hike from Meltingen to Grellingen, the reverse of a previous planned hike that got detoured somehow. We both decided that it was much easier to follow the trail this direction. We hopped on the S3 train from Basel SBB to Laufen, then the 111 bus to the Meltingerbrücke stop. I think the whole trip took about 45 minutes to an hour. Then we just followed the wanderweg yellow diamonds and signs to Grellingen.

It was sunny and got up to about 18°C (65°F). The trail was a bit wet and muddy in some places but all in all was no problem to hike along. The bärlauch is still growing strong, and we could smell it as we passed by. There were a lot more flowers out, and many more of the trees are springing forth with little green leaves. We even saw a couple of butterflies. I was able to get a pretty good photograph of one of them. It landed in a patch of violets, which made a nice backdrop for the colors on its wings. This is definitely a hike to repeat.

Wartenberg Ruins

Sunday December 16, 2007
On our numerous trips to Ikea we had seen an old stone tower up on top of a hill overlooking the town of Muttenz, and thought it would be fun to go see it sometime if we could figure out how to get up there. Today I figured we'd take the number 14 tram out to Muttenz-Dorf and see if we could find the way.

When we got off the tram at Muttenz, we realized they were holding their Weinachtsmarkt. It was cold enough that we considered just browsing through the booths there and heading home, but the thought of exploring the ruins kept us going. We decided that if it was still going on when we got back down we'd stop and have some glühwein to warm up.

The little yellow wanderweg (hiking trail) signs had Wartenberg Ruin listed, which sounded promising, so we followed them up the very steep hill to the top. When we got there I was not too badly tired out, amazingly enough. All the walking we've been doing seems to be getting me into better shape, yay! We had seen on the map at the bottom of the hill that there were actually three different ruins. Vorhere Ruin, Mittlere Ruin and Hintere Ruin (something like forward or front ruin, middle ruin and back ruin).

We started at the front ruin, and that turned out to be the most interesting one. It had the most complicated layout of the three. The other two were basically just towers. They had all been at least partially reconstructed at various times over the years, ranging from the 1930s through the 1990s. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any information about them, even online.

There were what looked like 'bunkers' or pillboxes interspersed between the ruins. I'm no expert, but they were possibly from circa WWII, and were full of leaves to about neck height so we didn't attempt to go in them. We also discovered a bomb shelter type construction that had been included underneath part of the front ruin, possibly during one of the reconstructions. It was filled with graffiti, which seems to be a big problem around here. Thankfully the top part of the ruins were not too terribly defaced.

This is a view of the interior of the front ruin, there were a number of windows and half walls scattered throughout, but it was hard to tell if anyone had ever lived there or if it was built only as a fortification and watch 'tower.' It certainly had an outstanding view of the surrounding countryside.

On the trek from the front ruin to the middle ruin we saw an area that had been dug out of the hillside. This had most likely been used as the quarry for building the original fortifications, as there were still some big blocks lying in a pile along one side.

The middle ruin was a big square watch tower that had originally had at least 3 floors, judging from the holes where the floor joists had been. Stairs and a platform around the outside had been put up at some point so you could go to the top. This is the tower that is visible from the tram and had peaked our interest. There was a wooden bridge across a big ditch leading to the doorway. A wrought iron gate had been put in, probably when it was restored, and this was propped mostly open. There were hanging ferns growing in the corners from the second floor , and one of the windows had a decorative grate that was an interesting contrast to the rest of the rather utilitarian construction.


More windows in the middle ruin, one with a view of the town of Muttenz, you can see the church tower in the top middle. The church was also very well fortified, which is a bit unusual for the area. We kept hearing wafts of Christmas music from the town as we wandered the ruins.

The back ruin was a round tower with incredibly thick walls and funny little skewed holes to help light the interior. There were wooden stairs spiraling up to the top, and it was very dark inside, so those little holes did not do a very good job letting light in. Of course, the walls were about two feet thick, so they were really too small to do much.

There was a courtyard on the far side of this tower surrounded by half fallen rock walls. A fire pit had been set up here, and had obviously been used for picnics. Unfortunately I couldn't get a very good shot of it because there was litter scattered quite liberally around.




This is the view looking out towards Basel from the top of the last tower, and the other is looking out over the back of the hill. Quite a contrast. The built up areas are very crowded, houses and industry packed in side by side. It is nice that they make an effort to keep some of it as fields and forests.

Since the sun was starting to set and we had explored all three of the ruins, we headed back down the hill to look over the rest of the Weinachtsmarkt. We did stop and treat ourselves to a cup of glühwein (the stuff we had in the Barfusserplatz Weinachtsmarkt was more flavorful, this tasted a bit watered down), and shared a vanille-erdbeeren stange (vanilla strawberry pastry) that was delicious. It probably helped that we had worked up quite an appetite from hiking up that hill...unfortunately, my batteries needed charging so I didn't get any photographs of the fortified church or the Weinachtsmarkt.

Rainy days

Yesterday I made plans to go out hiking the trail from Aesch to Ettingen again with a friend. This morning we woke up to a gray drizzly day, but I had been so looking forward to another wander in the woods that I decided I wanted to go anyway. "Bring your umbrella!" she said. This time I also had freshly charged batteries in my camera, so I was able to take some nice photos.

We met up and hopped on the 11 tram out to Aesch, and headed off into the drizzle. As we walked through Aesch we passed a big group of people who looked like they had just gotten back from a hike in the woods themselves, all with unfurled umbrellas. One elderly gentleman at the back end of the group looked at us with concern and said something which I would have to guess was something like "Where are your umbrellas?!" since I don't understand much German yet. Not long after that we broke out our umbrellas. The rain was coming down just hard enough that we were getting rather damp without them.

Here are some views along the trail. There is a little birdhouse you can see in the first one, in the tree to the right of the trail. We saw quite a few of these scattered around in the trees.



Most of the leaves have fallen now, but these few still hanging on looked very brilliant against the hazy hills. There were quite a few of these rocky outcroppings in amongst the trees. It looks like this was one of the areas that had been trimmed back at some point, and the rock really stood out.


Here is one example of the huge long wood stacks that are out along some of the trails.


Here is a view as we came down out of the hills and headed toward Ettingen where we caught the tram back to Basel.


We saw this group of young kids out on an expedition to get a Christmas tree. You can see the tree being carried along upside down by one of their chaperones in the middle-front of the group.


This was a farm right outside the town where we saw some sheep, a couple of horses, and a big John Deere tractor. For some reason I didn't realize they were international. There was also a shed further in toward town with some old (possibly antique) farm tools hanging off it, though I suspect they were just for decoration.







The clock is broken! I thought this was a neat little sundial, and it even has a chart detailing the amount of discrepancy to account for depending on what time of year it is. Of course, it doesn't work well when it's cloudy out.

Forest wandering

I took a walk today, and it was very pretty...but unfortunately the batteries had died in the camera, which I discovered when I tried to turn it on to take a picture of a big heron-type bird out in the middle of a farm field. I was planning on meeting the walking group in Aesch to go on their walk, but the tram took longer than I had thought it would to get there, and they were already gone when I arrived. So, I headed out on my own, and had a wonderful hike, up a big hill along some vineyards and through the woods. Beautiful tall hemlock groves, mixed amongst oaks and possibly birch and maple. I am not sure of the identification of the trees here in Europe. It reminded me a lot of the woods around where I grew up, but with more pine and hemlock. I could hear chain saws and a tractor running off somewhere in the distance, and birds, but otherwise it was nice and quiet.

They have some sort of trimming and forest management that they do here, and there were areas where a lot of the trees had been cut down, and a couple of spots where they had planted saplings and put them in protective tubes. And there were HUGE piles of stacked wood with tarps over them. Apparently they get numbered, and the people who they are for can come pick them up when they need wood. I am not sure if that is quite how it works, but that's what I heard second-hand. I am sure I will go again, and will have to take pictures because these piles were truly impressive.

At one point I could see mountains off in the distance, but I am not certain what mountains they were. I'm not sure if you can see the Alps from Basel, but they had snow up in the upper valleys. I believe they were east and a bit south of Basel. It has been gray and cloudy out here much of the time, but the sun was peeking through the clouds today, and made great weather for a hike. I think fall and winter are my favorite time of the year for hiking. I'd rather go walking when it is cooler out than when it is hot.

This weekend MrB and I also went on a wander through another wooded area I had been to earlier in the week with one of my expat friends. If you take the number 8 tram all the way to the end at Neuweilerstrasse, there are a bunch of trails winding through woods and fields. There were quite a few people out riding horses and many others jogging and walking. People do love to get outdoors here. They do in the U. S. too, but maybe there's just more people to the amount of outdoor space here so you see more when you're out walking.

Klus Valley Vineyard Visit

Saturday October 20, 2007

We signed up through Centrepoint for a tour and wine tasting at the Domaine Nussbaumer in the Klus Vineyards. We were somewhat late arriving because the train took longer than we had thought, then we hiked a bit along the wrong trail to get there. But we eventually caught up to the tour group just as the walk through the vineyards was ending. We were able to join in for the tour of the wine production area, where the grapes are first started fermenting, and the celler, where there are huge stainless steel fermenting tanks for the wine to form and ferment over a few months or more. This is a rather small operation, and they actually take in harvests from other, smaller vineyards and process their grapes into wine for them. This is a great service for the small vineyards, because then they don't have to worry about the expense and space required for keeping up the equipment.

After this we sat down in the area where they store their oak wine casks, and got to sample some of their wines, with bread, meat and cheese to help soak up the alcohol. They gave us a sample of three different white wines, and three different red wines. Luckily, we were able to pour our own glasses, so my samples were very small, as I am not that much of a wine drinker. It is interesting to taste a small amount of the different kinds, however, and see how different the flavors can be. Our favorite was a red called Strohwein (Straw Wine). It is so named because they originally used mats of straw to dry the grapes on before making them into wine. Now they use plastic netting, and the grapes are dried for a couple of months before they begin the fermentation process. This results in a richer, more complex, and slightly stronger, sweeter flavor than when fresh grapes are used.

I didn't get any pictures inside, but snapped a few as we were leaving.

St. Crischona Again

Sunday October 14, 2007

Sunday we decided to go for a hike, because the weather was beautiful. I decided I'd try to find the way I had gone before with the group of hikers, to go to St. Crischona again. I sort of remembered the way, we just didn't end up going up the first mega steep hill to the lookout point. The wanderweg signs that point you to St. Crischona take you up a slightly less steep, but possibly longer hill. At any rate, we ended up going through the same fields at the top of the hill that I had hiked through before, so we made it to the same place in the end.



We hiked along the edge of these fields, where people seem to have weekend 'country' huts that they go to. I couldn't tell if they were set up so people could stay overnight, or if they just went for the day. Next to one of them we saw a small pasture with goats that were being naughty and nibbling the neighbors hedge. One of them had made a valiant attempt to climb through the fence to get at some particularly tasty morsel. As we were standing there chuckling about this, a couple walked by and went into the gate for that little hut, then they went down along their hedge, and chased the goats away. I photographed them just after they'd leapt away from the strange noises the man was making and had turned to look back at him.



We stopped at a bench along the edge of some woods, where I took this photo of some cows gathered around the one tree in their pasture. It looks like they cut the hay from the fields then put up electric fences to divide them up, and put their cows out to graze. They have these big water tanks on wheels that they park out in the pasture, since there is no other water source out there. I was thinking that there was no way the cows we had when I was growing up would have stayed in - the barbed wire fences we strung up could barely even keep them in - they were very 'exploratory' cows, prime examples of thinking the grass is always greener on the other side.



The church at St. Crischona was actually open today (maybe because it was Sunday), so we were able to go in and see the stained glass, and were also able to climb to the top of their bell tower for a great view of the area. It was a very hazy day, however, so it was somewhat limited. I got a great shot of the church with a bunch of roses in front, and one of the mostly harvest themed stained glass inside. You can see the window just under the clock, which was as high as you could go up the tower. We were able to see how the tiling for the roof was done in that room, which I have never seen before. Each tile has a nubbin off the back side of it, that rests on the top of a slat of wood underneath and that is all that keeps it from sliding off the roof. We were thinking that wouldn't be very safe in high winds, but I'm not sure that is much of a problem around here.



After enjoying the view, we headed back down around through the woods to the town of Bettingen, where we happened upon a farm stand that was selling fresh picked apples. There was no-one there to watch it, just a scale to weigh your apples on, and a locked cash box. The honor system actually seems to work here, which is very nice. We picked up some apples there, and MrB requested an apple pie for dessert.

Discovering the countryside

I joined a walking group on their Monday walk today, and it was a gorgeous day for it, mostly sunny and about 60-65 (15-19C) out. I want to learn how to find the way to the network of trails that everyone says is out there. Once you find them, there are lovely helpful signs pointing out the way, but finding the way to them seems somewhat tricky, at least to this newcomer.

View of Basel from the first stop, overlooking the Rhein.








There was quite a bit of uphill at first, but I plugged along and made it up the hills. As one person said, 'it is difficult to hike anywhere in Switzerland and not run into a hill along the way,' so I'd better get used to it! The views were very nice, but do not rival the Alps. We hiked from Friedhof am Hörnli to St. Crischona and back down around through some beautiful woods to Bettingen and then to the starting point. The beginning of the trail was hidden back along the wall to the right as you face Friedhof am Hörnli and along behind some apartment buildings. I hope I can find it again.

Church at St. Crischona.








Woods between St. Crischona and Bettingen.








View of Bettingen.








Restaurant Baslerhof in Bettingen.








House with strange packed-wood sculptures. They looked like they were formed into a ball then wrapped with netting of some sort.






Close-up of the wood-sculptures.
(I took this thinking of Dad and all those hours we spent gathering wood for heat during the winter.)






I think I have to pick up the map I saw at the local Post office for hiking in the area. There is a separate one for biking, and I may have to get that one as well if we get bikes this weekend. We are planning to go to the Mega Velomarkt that is being held on Friday and Saturday. We're hoping to find bikes that we like there that don't cost an arm and a leg. Some of the prices I've seen even for that are pretty eye popping. They have a website at www.velomaerkte.ch, but it is all in German.