Basel and Cologne

I was away this week with work, arriving in Basel on Monday evening. After a few meetings on Tuesday, I courageously assumed that the weekend's through-fall problems were resolved and went for what turned out to be a great run in beautiful weather. I started off through the old town - past the town hall and the cathedral - then along the Rhein and down one of its tributaries. This took me past the footie stadium (one of Basel's must-sees apparently) and into some proper woodland. Navigating (poorly) via my Blackberry and a printout from mapmyrun.com I then ended up climbing a decent hill up to a meadow halfway to somewhere called Muttenz, before returning via the Botanic Gardens. Just over 9.2 miles in 1h33 - not very quick for me, but good fun.

The next day, we finished up in Cologne, where mapmyrun.com had found me a straightforward run down the banks of the Rhein. This one was much quicker in every way - 4.2 miles in 32 mins. On the way, I saw some cool buildings overhanging the river, below. Cologne holds good memories for me - another first moment of freedom. My friend Gus and I spent our first night Inter-railing here just after A-levels. We only spent a few hours here on our way to Prague but it was my first trip as a proper independent traveler and it prefaced what was a hilarious holiday, a massive loop through Greece, Italy, France, Holland and Belgium. One of our first acts was to climb the cathedral - visible on the right hand side of this shot.