Day 12 - A Hallmark Farewell

The time has come. Tomorrow morning we go to the airport and fly home for Christmas. It is bittersweet, but are awfully tired and a little over the tummy issues. Thankfully, the Christmas magic has not run out.

We spent the early morning utilizing our hotel breakfast, Nick avoided any bacon or dairy products and opted for fruits and croissants, and enjoying the now very overcast view of the Alps.

Then came packing, and boy did we have a lot of stuff! We ran out to the local office supply store and grabbed some bubble wrap, then began wrapping all of our mugs, ornaments, and other assorted delicate goods for safe travels back home. It took us about an hour, but we got everything packed and cushioned. Shoutout to Nick's dad for forcing us to take an extra duffel as it is now full (every bag is now full).

We then checked out and took our last funicular ride down to the bus station. As we did so, we met a friendly drink delivery driver. He saw our four massive suitcases and asked us where we were going, so we told him about our plans for the day: take the train to Basel, see the Christmas Markets there, then go to the airport at 4 AM. Without hesitation, he said he had a Christmas present for us then, and told him to follow us out of the funicular. He rummaged through his van, and emerged with a bottle of champagne!

We were everything: shocked, excited, worried about the bus, but plain happy. His explanation was we weren't going straight to the airport, so might as well enjoy the day! We thanked him for his generosity, still flabbergasted, and he was on his way, back to work, as were we.

We caught the local to Basel and manged to store all of our bags somehow (this train model had no bag storage wide enough to hold our suitcases). When we arrived in Basel, we quickly found our hotel for the night (its next to the train station), dropped our bags, then made our way to the old city area. It was a warm, overcast day in Basel, very different from Luzren, and we dressed in too warm a clothing so we were sweating as we walked down to reunite with the Rhine.

We saw some cute old Swiss monuments, and a lot of fountains. Like in Luzren, there were maps all over pointing out the Christmas activities around the town, and the two main Christmas markets were very close by to us. We ended up scouting one out and admiring the Church it was next to. The church was open for tours too so we decided to come back later when it got darker.

We then made our way across the Rhine to see the Kaserne, which is where the Basel Tattoo is held. It's basically a giant international military band and drill concert, and Nick has been a fan for a long time. WELL, as soon as we crossed the bridge to get to the Kaserneplatz, it started POURING out of nowhere! Everybody who was out shopping and enjoying the overcast weather suddenly ran for any awning or doorway they could. We stopped a few times, and eventually made it. But it never stopped raining:

With no way to look around because the rain was hitting our eyeballs hard every time we tried to look up, we trudged back over the river, the scenic bridge now in shambles.

And made our way to the Christmas markets in our waterproof jackets- which by the way, held up. Side note: We see a bunch of Helly Hansen gear, which is what Nick has. Last night, Lauren saw her first Lands End jacket doppelganger, so they are rare here in Europe. But Lauren's jacket repelled 4 hours of constant rain, while Nick's got rather soaked through (but just the outer layer).

We never made it back to the church for a tour, and decided very readily that the second Christmas market by the museum was much better than the first one by the Church.

Two days ago, Lauren had shown Nick a Insta Reel where some influencer was in a Christmas market in France and got a baguette half cored out and stuffed with fondue like an over engorged molten mozzarella stick. Nick thought it was gross. That changed today, because apparently if you stick a hot dog in the molten fondue, its A-OK:

We also got our mug, of course (it says BASEL inside!) The rain cleared up and we caught one of the many musical performances (and departed with the majority of our Swiss Franc coins).

This Christmas market had a lot of indoor restaurant/chalet type booths, maybe because of the weather? We encountered one poor Viking couple trying to find fondue, going to every single booth that might've had fondue and asking where the nearest fondue was (Nick eventually told them after we heard them three times over 20 minutes ask very confused booth staff... "No we only sell scarves" "BUT WHERE'S THE FONDUE"). Also side note, Viking gives their cruise guests huge umbrellas and they are very annoying. We think they're here for the cruises leaving Basel for Amsterdam tomorrow, during the actual Christmas week (which is romantic but not ideal because the markets all close in 4 days).

ANYWAYS, we found one booth that had two fully animatronic moose heads doing a full cabaret show.

It feels like every market has something different that makes it special.

Lauren found a vegetarian booth that made pasta FRESH for you (its the Italian part of the Swiss I guess). They had a whole parm wheel they could throw the pasta in too, but Lauren didn't order that one because honestly we've had enough cheese.

By the time the pasta was gone, the rain had cleared. We finished up by buying our last purchases at various booths (some repeat vendors made an encore performance and seared their impression on us as mass produced chains), then strolled back slowly to the hotel through old town.

We popped our champagne and settled in to our small, two twin bed hotel room, reflecting on a 12 day journey full of Christmas memories with just a hint of perfection and classic German fairy tale magic in them.

It constantly shakes from the constant tram traffic outside (since you know, we're at the transit hub). But tomorrow we'll be up at 3 AM to fly to London, then back to SFO just in time for the annual golf game.

We might post about the airline experience, we'll see.

Otherwise, Merry Christmas. May it always be full of fun surprises, laughter, joy, awe, tastes, company, kindness, snow, trains, cheese, gluhwein, and of course, loved ones.

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