Ken Ritley

Here is it, a tunnel steeped in great mystery and known to extremely few people, located at the train station in Winterthur, Switzerland:

Even many residents who’ve grown up in Winterthur and have spent their whole lives here do not know that this incredible place exists!

You may ask, what is it?

The platforms at the main train station in Winterthur all have exactly two access and egress points – except for Platform 6/7.  Platform 6/7 also has the usual two exits – but in addition, at the very far end of Platform 6/7 there is an exit that is only known to people willing to walk the hundreds of meters to this end of the platform. It is not visible from the platform – and it is not documented anywhere. In fact, its existence is very conspicuously hidden!

When was it built? I don’t know – but I expect very few people know.

Why was it built?  I don’t know – but I expect even fewer people know.

How many people use it?  I don’t know – but I expect very few people use it. It is otherwise invisible and totally hidden to the public.

But . . . inside the tunnel there are AMAZING WONDERS that I have photographed and will be sharing in upcoming blogs!

These look like ants. But if you look really closely you will see they are not ants – they are people of the Swiss city of Basel:

You might ask how I came to photograph these ant-like people of Basel.  During the Basel Herbstmesse there is a big tower that has a big elevatable platform. You board the platform when it is at the bottom:

This is the platform en route to the top:

And here’s what it looks like when the platform is at the top. To the people in the platform, their fellow citizens below look like ants – but remember, they are not ants, they are the people of Basel!

This is the famous Italian explorer Marco Polo,

I have not researched this personally, but I read somewhere that at one point he stayed in the Swiss city of Bern, in the area known as the Matte:

This is the area where farmers would bring their produce in the middle ages to be sold in the city of Bern, so interestingly the merchants of this area developed their own language, Mattenenglisch, that was not understandble outside of their community, so they could keep their negotiations a secret. There are many such examples of dialects created for this purpose around the world.

Continuing the series, I found a few things really attractive about this market, not the least of which I did not see the typical German Christmas market vendors that tend to get boring after a while. There were a surprising number of stands belonging to volunteer organizations, many of them selling products made by their members.

Continuing the series, the Basel Herbstmesse is so huge, there are market stands and attractions sprawled out all across the city:

Also known as Thun Castle, it was built in the twelfth century

What is very surprising about the Basel Herbstmesse, or Basel Autumn Fair, is not that it is Switzerland’s oldest street market – over 600 years old! And it is not that it is Switzerland’s largest street market, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

What is amazing is that so few Swiss people seem to know that this market exists or have even heard of it.

I’ve talked about walking the plank – in Stuttgart. And I’ve talked about walking the plank – in Esslingen am Neckar.

Continuing the series, here is an art exhibit in Basel at the top of the Basel Rosshof, at one time a historically significant place for horses, and today a rather ugly building:

It is amazing that it still runs today, and of course it raises of host of other questions, such as who takes care of it, is there a financial budget for it, and the like.

Here is a plaque where you can see more details: