…and man are they long! On my drive from Basel to Lugano, I traveled through no less than six tunnels. The longest of which takes nearly fifteen minutes to travel through! This is the St. Gotthard Road Tunnel, it is the third largest tunnel in the world. Believe me, when you are traveling through with staring at the headlights from the opposite flow of traffic, it definitely feels like one of the longest tunnels! When entering the tunnel from the Basel side, there are two separate lanes, one for commercial trucks and another for cars. This is because they only allow a few trucks in the tunnel at one time. They are spaced out because there was a big accident in October of 2001 and 11 people were killed and many injured due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Apparently the trucks are larger contributors to the seriousness of that situation (gee who would have guessed) but in typical Swiss fashion, they are eager to correct their mistakes and make sure the future holds only the best possible scenarios.

St Gotthards Tunnel Official Page

Labels: roadways, switzerland, unique

Sweet Dreams and Goodnite

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You might have deduced from my title that today I’m going to talk about the Rhine River. Well, save that thought for another day.

One of the things that I find so charming about Basel is that there are fountains everywhere. Everywhere! Nearly every street in Basel Stadt seems to have a fountain on it. The word on the street is that the water (unfiltered) in these fountains is so clean that people drink from them. Even though this is in Switzerland, probably one of the cleanest countries in the world, I was still a bit skeptical. About a month ago I saw a woman filling a water bottle from a fountain, and then yesterday a jogger paused for a sip. (As a side--- yes, a jogger in 25 degree weather with a layer of ice on the ground!!!) Coming from an extremely dirty city in America, this is simply amazing!

There are many styles for the fountains, some modern, some sculpture, some just functional. One of the fountains closest to my place has a little area for doggies to drink from also.













The most famous fountains are the Tingley Fountains, one in Gross Basel and one on the Klein side.

Tingley fountain
Originally uploaded by bearfont

Jean Tingley Museum Fountain
Originally uploaded by claire_hallinan

Labels: basel, unique, water

Sweet Dreams and Goodnite

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