Among Friends

My faithful readers know that Red Baron is a writer on the German Wikipedia. I published my first article - the biography of Karl von Rotteck - on March 6, 2004. The Freiburg group of authors and editors meets monthly for a Stammtisch.

The writers of the Swiss-German Wikipedia generally meet in Zürich but had their 89th meeting scheduled in Basel on July 8, 2022.

This turned out to be a unique opportunity to meet my Swiss colleagues. Taking advantage of the Nine-Euro Ticket, I took the regional train from Freiburg to Basel Badischer Bahnhof.

The Basel Tinguely Museum

After a 20-minute walk, I reached the Tinguely Museum, where the Swiss Wikipedians had organized an editing workshop.

The entrance

According to their notes, the participants wrote 18 (!!) new Wikipedia articles. À la bonne heure.

Meet the friends (©Lantina/Wikipedia)

When I arrived at the site, they had finished their work and were assembled under a tent outside the Museum, socializing. They warmly received me, the guest from the large canton in the north, with a glass of cool wine.

Passing a Tinguely installation on our way to the bus

Following the aperitif, we took public transport to the Elisabethenanlage, a small park near the Basel central train station. For the Stammtisch, one participant wrote an article on the history of this green paradise. 

Here is a short and incomplete description in English. In 1817, the former vineyard became the cemetery of St. Elisabethen. It was completed around 1850 with a chapel and a mortuary. In 1901, the chapel was demolished, while the morgue was preserved and remained known as Tootehüsli (little house for the dead).

Zum Kuss

Following a redesign of the Elisabethenanlage in 2008, the Tootehüsli became a café in 2011 and was named Zum Kuss (To the kiss?).

The food was Spanish and too much.

Thank you, friends and colleagues, for your hospitality.
 In the background, the peaceful Elisabethenanlage.

One Swiss colleague visited the Freiburg Stammtisch in 2011.
Time runs so fast.

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