Da 16 - Mulhouse to Basel (24 miles)

It's been an interesting day. The journey to Basel and Switzerland was uneventful enough: more canal, straight and uninspiring on another cold and overcast day. Within two hours I had made it to the Rhine and then followed the river more or less into the heart of Basel. However, everything that I had in my mind about Switzerland - the cleanliness, the neat and ancient buildings, the trend towards things ecological - was slowly deconstructed as I cycled past industry and smoking chimneys and power stations and modern commercial buildings following the route towards Basel city centre. 

Having negotiated the roads and cars and trams I found a place for coffee where I could warm up and check where I was relative to my accommodation, only to find I was unable to get internet on my phone. For whatever reason it was not happy to have left France. In the end I made my way to my accommodation having had to ask a couple of Americans in the cafe if they could show me on their phone where it was. I managed to enter the building and find the wifi code which gave me access to my emails and the information I needed to do the self-service check in at this staff-free hotel. However, the email with the code giving me access to my room that 'would arrive within five minutes' had still not turned up twenty minutes later. As I was meant to be meeting a friend from last year's Camino who lives in the city I couldn’t hang around so I stashed my bike in the dining room (no staff to stop me) and agreed with a French lady in the room next to me that she would look after my bags. Then it was into town to meet Patrick.

As soon as I was away from the immediate hotel area and close to the Rhine, Basel became all I had expected: tall, neat continental looking houses, multicoloured, clearly old and in a style I would call Swiss. My afternoon being shown around by Patrick - the Minster, the Old Town and the Town Hall, the city's back streets and the location of various things of interest - only reinforced the sense of all things old and Swiss and has provided me with a good grounding for tomorrow when I have a free day to explore the city more fully. Patrick and I said our farewells after a good dinner and I headed back to my accommodation. I still may not have got my phone working with the Swiss mobile provider but at least I am now in my room.