From Basel we take the bus to the airport where it is time to rent our car and then return back towards Switzerland. Passing through the corridor that leads from the airport in France to Switzerland territory is an interesting experience, it feels like in an scifi movie where you drive through an area but are protected by barriers and walls to see anything outside.
Our next stop is just past Basel proper at Augusta Raurica, a former Roman frontier town. It was quite an important town a bulwark of the Roman Empire against the Alemanni (confederation of Germanic tribes) on the other side of the Rhine. The population reached at its peak about 20, 000 people at they had all the amenities you would expect in a Roman town. Only about 20% of the city was excavated and probably the major attraction is the impressive theater that is still used for performances to this day.
We explore the theater for a while while trying to avoid a group of very loud school children that are enjoying their fieldtrip to the ruins.
On the outside it feels that it was nestled close to the wall as we see ruins of what in our eyes seem to be towers right next to the entrance in the Theater. Or maybe it was just the impressive entrance to the theater proper?
We have paid for one hour of parking at the site and we plan to use it to the last second. So from the theater we make our way towards the Amphitheater. The way is nicely marked with one problem, there are no distances noted so we are not sure how far away it is. It is a nice walk though through the fields and passing an active archaeological dig, nice!
After one more corn field, which doesn’t look so well, we finally arrive at the amphitheater. While the theater was quite impressive the amphitheater is not. However it is interesting as it was built in a natural depression to save on construction costs.
From here we follow the forest edge trail slowly back towards the parking lot. Here we have our first encounter with the famous Swiss cows but they are far in the distance, still.
This changes as we make our way directly through the fields on the trail. They notice us and decide to follow us on a parallel trail, quite fun.
As we close up the loop we pass one more ruin, a small temple. Here a person is actively working either on stabilizing or rebuilding the walls, we are not sure really.
The last part of the trail is passing through the village on quiet lanes and past picturesque houses. It is quite bucolic really.
And then we are back at the parking lot and really underwhelmed a bit, while the city was clearly huge given the distances between the Theater and Amphitheater and then the temple it seems excavated a bit haphazardly at least from a tourist perspective. There was no central area to explore and the attractions were relatively far apart, it actually makes sense that it was free to enter. Back at the car with five minutes to spare we are on our way to Zug and our friends with a small stop at a rest area on the one hour drive.
