619 Switzerland 2, the Via Francigena part 7

Thu - Neuchatel to Cressier
Disaster lucky - 2am I could here thunderstorms coming and moved camp to large dry church porch - walking tour -, internet, walked lake Latium museum, village along hill bottom towards next lake,
Impressionante :
Met - coffee from Italian missionaries,
Strange - Cressier is a nice historic town where every building where every building is a winery yet it is dominated by an immense oil refinery across the road.
Revelation Swiss stop stealing my ideas - I had already observed Italian museum workers are inefficiently used : they people who sell you the ticket then people who check the ticket 30s later and room watchers ... Jeez what a boring job, they be better being trained to be interpretive guides, a more specialised and highly paid job. Then they'd be in the room explaining and people wouldn't misbehave cos they be acting as "room watchers at the same time .I thought entrance would be better by having turnstile a "suggested donation" box and a camera .. Most people would put the correct money in and here I see in Switzerland towers and one museum have a coin operated turnstile and no workers.
No Grapes, but pears
Tip seems most of Latium is the free displays outside on the public footpath.

Fri - To Beil - whole day of passing lakeside wineries
Disaster - not much, at 6am rain started so I quickly packed up, but then rain stopped.
- A long day arrived at 5.15pm
- Beil tourist office a disaster :
- they knew nothing about the new pilgrim route
- complained in German about having to speak in French to me, unaware I coulld understand them cos I do speak basic German
- they couldn't even tell me when the Catholic church was .. 5.40 pm I find one, but it was German Catholic, next to cathedral, but lights switched off as I arrived. 6.330pm Library ,but it had just closed. When I did get to the Roman Catholic church it was now 7.40pm the mass must have finished at 7.30pm
Impressionante : winery towns and the lake,
Met
Strange 1- first town has a separate old town with one main street protected by one then another gatehouse. There are only houses down the main street so the only other street a large oval one around the backs of the houses.
2- another old town.. Then the next village was across a secret line suddenly no more French everything was in German.
3- that trainline is incredibly busy : every 2 minutes there is a train, saw a level crossing going up coming down like crazy and then I saw the track went down to single track, then I saw a steam train coming
4 - Swiss stop stealing my ideas again - the traditional VF route to Basel is Lausanne and over the mountains to Friburg and Bern, I hadn't know this when I'd picked my route by looking at the map and saw that at Yverdon instead of turning west into France and more mountains I could stay flat and easy by coming down the lake valley and then later cut across to Basel which I know is not too high. Then today in a tourist office I found a leaflet "The new VF connecting route to Base, June 11th 2011l" which is the same as mine except for the first half the Lausanne to Lake Biel, a they still go up after Lausanne, but cut away before Friburg and Bern

- after all the historic Swiss villages Beil centre has an ugly cosmopolitan feel to it : it's all Africans , and Muslims with every corner having a Lebanese shop and more expensive than normal supermarkets.

Revelation
Grapes fell off
Tip do make the 500m diversion to go into Lintau old town

Sat - out of Beil up to
Disaster - trail marking was problematic
Impressionante :
Met volunteer group at local mini zoo invited me to share their barbeque
Strange - there were 2 special markets tourist office didn't tell me about
Revelation
Tip

Sun - Roncivilir Chattion Fair
Disaster
Impressionante :
Met
Strange -
Revelation
Tip

Mon - Moulier -
Disaster It rained all night to lunchtime
Impressionante :
Met very kind hosts Raphael and his mum
Strange - parrot
Revelation - dried apple chips she made were delicous .. Good way of using windfalls
Tip

Tue - Delemont -
Disaster -
Impressionante :
Met - Tractor museum people
Strange -
Revelation - My non Green Energy company - cos non are really green
- Capitalism means the more yo buy the cheaper it gets, but this is counter conservation/efficiency. What you need is the more you use the higher you pay for each unit. E.g. For energy band customers - Goddam greenie family - pay 4.4p KWh - Pensioners- pay 5p KWh - Guzzlers- pay 20p KWh
- your search bot
- instead of speedbump put a 70cm wide strip of cobblestones or rough bricks
church is a government provides hospitals and schools but undemocratic
- pub automat idea
Tip

crossed to Grenzach in Germany to camp
Wed - To Laufen, Zwingen
Disaster
Impressionante : "nothing to see in Zwingen" say tourist info, then I find it has an interesting round castle with a covered bridge.
Met
Strange -
Revelation
Tip The official Route is logwinded I stuck mostly to the road following the natural river valley.

Flipnosis
- Tesco charity food auction, Sundays at closing ..bg it or bin it
Thu - Finally into Basel a predictable anti-climax
Disaster - just anticlimax and nowhere to stay ..
Impressionante :
Met
Strange -
Revelation
Tip

Fri - Into Germany stayed
Disaster
Impressionante :
Met
Strange - Weird 200m after the border there is an Aldi supermarket; incredibly almost everything is half the price of the Swiss Aldi I was in yesterday, yet 2Km away in the centre of the city there are many branches of the 3 Swiss supermarkets packed with Swiss people
- Swiss agricultural industry musst be incredibly protected qll local products : dairy, meat eggs are particularly expensive .. I guess Swiss can afford to be patriotic in buying.
- yesterday I was in the Caritas charity supermarket which is stocked with leftovers from the big supermarketsbut I bought nothing as still stuff was too expensive

- immense pile of poo

Revelation
Tip Not everything in Switzerland is expensive ..I carried my 3Kg of extra luggage, but now I find that posting upto 5Kg is cheaper than Italy where iut costs €11 plus box here it's 8Fr, In Germany €7.

Sat - Basel - heritage day
heritage day in Basel turned out to be boring : the events weren't so exciting and everything was in German. I went on an archaelogy tour where she unlocked doors showing Roman and medieval walls under thecity then I went to the Bio Tech open day : OK fors kids. David my CS host was traveling so I decided to cross to France to go to the heritage events in Mulhouse
Disaster
Impressionante :
Met
Strange -
Revelation
Tip

Sun - To Mulhouse

The newspaper report is a bit confused ..it says I am religious, which I am not

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