Swiss National Day Weekend

Had a fab and awesome weekend celebrating the Swiss national day which is August first. We had made plans with friends to go tubing along  the Aare river from a small city called Thun down to the capital of Bern. This is one of the most beautiful rivers with crystal clear turquoise water and with views of the snowy peaks of the alps in the distance. 

As the weather forecast promised the best weather for Saturday we picked that day. It is a full day event that takes about 5 hours to float a long the river with the current from Thun to Bern. You bring drinks and something to eat and BBQ. Tradition is to make a stop midway. Make a fire and grill some sausages. 

This is a popular tradition and there were many people at the starting point. It is all very organized where there is a pumping station. You pay about 4 dollars to get to use the pump which is a fast way to inflate your boat. Everyone is using these kinds of rubber boats of various sizes. We had bought one for this year.  A smaller boat that fit the two of us perfectly. But there are boats for 4 persons or more also.

Then you cruise, float and paddle down the river like this. Hanging out with friends having a good time in the sunshine, enjoying the beautiful views. There are parts where you have to paddle more actively and parts where you can just float a long the current in a more relaxed way.

Here we pulled the boat to shore and stopped for lunch. Later when we eventually reached Bern we then took the train back to Thun to retrieve the car that was parked there. Then we were back in Basel around eightish in the evening.

Sunday evening on the 31:st Basel city celebrate with fireworks. It is a great show that everyone can enjoy for free. The city lights up fireworks a long the Rhine river on two big boats. It is a show that goes on for 20 minutes. The fireworks are sponsored by various companies as well as the city itself. A long both sides of the river people line up. There are drinks and food stalls, live music and all kinds of things going on.

On August first the neighboring communities have their very own firework shows. We live in Allschwil and they have their own firework show. Monday is a public holiday for everyone. We had a nice long weekend. In the evening we were invited over to one of the couples that we had done the river rafting with for some BBQ. They have rented the cutest little house in one of the neighboring suburps of Basel but still within bikning distance from the city. We had the most perfect view of the fireworks that Binningen was doing. Those fireworks were actually more impressive than the ones that we had watched at the city the night before. 

An awesome weekend with friends, fireworks and lots of celebration has come to an end.