Day 10 – From Rheinfelden to Basel, from Basel to Ilanz

This was the shortest day’s ride ever. It was the day on which I ran out of road.

There seemed to be nothing worth visiting between Rheinfelden and Basel apart from the Roman remains of Augusta Raurica, so I headed off there immediately after breakfast. The museum was closed, so I saw the modest remains of the amphitheatre – in which the Swiss had built tank-traps. But I missed the more famous theatre.

Augusta Raurica – the amphitheatre

Augusta Raurica was a significant town and played an important role, along with Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) and Augusta Vindelicum (now Augsburg) in the plans of Caesar Augustus for conquest of the still unconquered Germania.

Augusta Raurica – the theatre

From Augusta Raurica, the ride to Basel was a boring slog alongside a main road. The arrival in the city was pretty nerve-racking becuse of the way in which the Swiss put some of their urban cycle paths in the middle rather than at the edge of roads.

I made my way over the busy Schwarzwaldbrücke and then found out that I shoud have stayed on the other bank of the river. Still, I used the second crossing to take this picture of Basel.

Basel from the Wettsteinbrücke

I arrived at Basel main station at around midday – the end of  the line, or rather the beginning. From here I booked a train ticket back to Ilanz.

Basel Railway Station

The train took me and my bicycle first to Zürich and then to Chur. At Chur I changed to the local train and finally got to see the Rhine Gorge from the bottom – through the window of the carriage.

The Rhine Gorge seen from the railway

The Rhine Gorge from the train

On arrival in  Ilanz I scouted around for a hotel and found the Casutt, basic, but decent (see: http://www.hotelcasutt.ch/Hotel_Casutt/Willkommen.html).

Ilanz is  a pretty unremarkable little town of two and a half thousand souls, a third of whom speak Romansch. Its place in history is assured by the activities of the Diet of Ilanz which decided in the sixteenth century with unusual liberalism that inhabitants of the three Leagues – i.e. the region that became Graubünden – should be allowed to choose between the Catholic and the rising new Protestant forms of Christianity. I spent an hour or so visiting the place, but found nothing of note, except perhaps the Obertor pictured below.