To Basel

So off to Heathrow by cab and I arrived unfeasibly early. Managed to have my shampoo and conditioner confiscated as dangerous weapons. Also, when I found the business lounge, I rather vaguely asked a man at the counter for a beer. He looked appalled and said that it was a self service counter. So it was. And the international executive I had thought was a barman looked fairly huffily at me after that. Soon joined by the others, including a strangely grouchy French Bloke.

The flight was just how I like them, short and uneventful and travelling in business class. Arrived in Basel at about 10 and got a taxi from the airport to Les Troi Rois hotel in the middle of Basel. Strangely we drove through a bit of France for a few hundred yards to get to Switzerland.

The hotel was rather lovely, with sumptuous rooms, and situated on the bank of the river. After dumping our bags off in our rooms, we grabbed a late drink on the terrace overlooking the black and viscous looking Rhine. A black mood had descended on the FB. He sat there looking sour over the rim of a gin and tonic, and said the river looked like blood. We remarked on the niceness of the nearby Mittlere Brücke bridge, and the FB said that he had thrown his and his ex-wife's wedding rings into the Rhine from that very bridge. The other two repaired to bed, while I and the FB refreshed ourselves with another drink and he described, in some detail, the sordid underbelly of Basel, and enlarged on the general fear and loathing the place generated in him.

And so to bed.

Below the sinister Rhine.