Baslers are immediately sure you can only be there on some horrible and unavoidable piece of business, and they go out of their way to make you welcome, to make up for it.
Things are quiet there in the slack season. There aren’t lots of people in the shops, the hotels are at maybe their lowest occupancy for the year; even the Rhine seems subdued, grey water under a grey sky with grey stinging sleet pelting down into it out of the fog, and the barges that go up and down the river hoot disconsolately in the mist, like lost cousins of Nessie looking for an escape route. If you can see far enough down the river-course to make out where the three metal sails of the Dreiländereck boundary monument jut up from the water, half the time they’re sheeted over with ice, so that even the seabirds are too uncomfortable to roost there for long.
You could attempt this view from the beautiful arches of the Mittlerebrücke , but you would have to be nuts, the way the wind comes howling down the river from the north and the North Sea, and rips across the bridge. So the best other place from which to attempt it would be the river-terrace of the oldest hotel in town, the Drei Könige am Rhein : and better still, since the river-terrace at the “Three Kings” is not heated this time of year, all the sane patrons having retreated inside to eat in the Rôtisserie des Rois , better still is to forget the wretched grey view entirely and go sit in the bar.
The Dreikönigs Bar is a snug wood-panelled hideaway off the “main drag” of the restaurant, with quiet Expressionist paintings hung on the dark panelling, and an archway-door opening out onto the windows which look toward the river: all the rest of the lighting is recessed pinpoint spots and shaded lamps, highlighting occasional glitters of gold and brass. There is a grand piano, but on a grey January afternoon no one plays it. Come along about three in the afternoon, and there’s no sound but the occasional grunt and hiss of the ruminative espresso machine hidden behind the bar, and the soft click or clink of glasses being washed and put away. Anton, the barman, uses the dishwasher at busy times, such as the evenings, when half the politicians and “beautiful people” in Basel are crowding the place. But he hates the dishwasher, really, and prefers to do the glasses himself, thoughtfully, in the slow hours, while gazing out the window toward the Mittlerebrücke , and Kleinbasel across the river.
Anton is one of those old-fashioned barmen who linger here and there in special places. He likes the old-fashioned bartender’s clothes, white shirt with full sleeves, sleeve garters, red suspenders; his hands are big and capable and don’t seem to mind dishwater. He seems to be in his fifties; his hair is dark and a bit long, and he has a full mustache that goes right around to his ears, drooping a little over an easy smile.
The other nice thing about Anton is that he’s easy to be around when the bar is otherwise empty. He has a gift for telling when you don’t want to be talked to, unlike some bartenders who will spend half an hour at a time trying to cheer you up when all you want in life is to drink a glass of wine and stare into space, letting your legs recover after hauling shopping bags full of assorted swag around the Old Town. Equally, Anton has the gift for knowing when you don’t mind being talked to. At such times he’ll go off into slightly Joycean stream-of-consciousness, expounding to you on everything and anything with the same easy unconcern he expends on Bellow, the ancient white-muzzled black Labrador who lies at the end of the bar and watches the cash register when Anton steps out. Anton’s English passes the merely “fluent” stage: it soars. I wish I spoke German a hundredth as well as he does English. I like him a lot.
That particular January afternoon, Bellow was sleeping, since Anton was behind the marble bar polishing the glasses, and I
Things are quiet there in the slack season. There aren’t lots of people in the shops, the hotels are at maybe their lowest occupancy for the year; even the Rhine seems subdued, grey water under a grey sky with grey stinging sleet pelting down into it out of the fog, and the barges that go up and down the river hoot disconsolately in the mist, like lost cousins of Nessie looking for an escape route. If you can see far enough down the river-course to make out where the three metal sails of the Dreiländereck boundary monument jut up from the water, half the time they’re sheeted over with ice, so that even the seabirds are too uncomfortable to roost there for long.
You could attempt this view from the beautiful arches of the Mittlerebrücke , but you would have to be nuts, the way the wind comes howling down the river from the north and the North Sea, and rips across the bridge. So the best other place from which to attempt it would be the river-terrace of the oldest hotel in town, the Drei Könige am Rhein : and better still, since the river-terrace at the “Three Kings” is not heated this time of year, all the sane patrons having retreated inside to eat in the Rôtisserie des Rois , better still is to forget the wretched grey view entirely and go sit in the bar.
The Dreikönigs Bar is a snug wood-panelled hideaway off the “main drag” of the restaurant, with quiet Expressionist paintings hung on the dark panelling, and an archway-door opening out onto the windows which look toward the river: all the rest of the lighting is recessed pinpoint spots and shaded lamps, highlighting occasional glitters of gold and brass. There is a grand piano, but on a grey January afternoon no one plays it. Come along about three in the afternoon, and there’s no sound but the occasional grunt and hiss of the ruminative espresso machine hidden behind the bar, and the soft click or clink of glasses being washed and put away. Anton, the barman, uses the dishwasher at busy times, such as the evenings, when half the politicians and “beautiful people” in Basel are crowding the place. But he hates the dishwasher, really, and prefers to do the glasses himself, thoughtfully, in the slow hours, while gazing out the window toward the Mittlerebrücke , and Kleinbasel across the river.
Anton is one of those old-fashioned barmen who linger here and there in special places. He likes the old-fashioned bartender’s clothes, white shirt with full sleeves, sleeve garters, red suspenders; his hands are big and capable and don’t seem to mind dishwater. He seems to be in his fifties; his hair is dark and a bit long, and he has a full mustache that goes right around to his ears, drooping a little over an easy smile.
The other nice thing about Anton is that he’s easy to be around when the bar is otherwise empty. He has a gift for telling when you don’t want to be talked to, unlike some bartenders who will spend half an hour at a time trying to cheer you up when all you want in life is to drink a glass of wine and stare into space, letting your legs recover after hauling shopping bags full of assorted swag around the Old Town. Equally, Anton has the gift for knowing when you don’t mind being talked to. At such times he’ll go off into slightly Joycean stream-of-consciousness, expounding to you on everything and anything with the same easy unconcern he expends on Bellow, the ancient white-muzzled black Labrador who lies at the end of the bar and watches the cash register when Anton steps out. Anton’s English passes the merely “fluent” stage: it soars. I wish I spoke German a hundredth as well as he does English. I like him a lot.
That particular January afternoon, Bellow was sleeping, since Anton was behind the marble bar polishing the glasses, and I
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