Basel Airport – Going Out the Wrong Door…..

My Wizz Air flight from Warsaw was uneventful, I had been given a window seat (always random as I refuse to pay extra) and although we set off late, it was a dramatic delay. During the flight, my fellow passengers were exhibiting only baseline levels of annoying behaviour, nobody tried to initiate a singalong, perform interpretive dance in the aisle or applaud when we landed, so frankly, a resounding success.

But, back to the unique nature of this airport, which is properly known as EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg as it’s serving the three countries of France, Germany and Switzerland. I was aware that there were two exits at the airport, both visible in the above photo, and Bill mentioned on Facebook to make sure that I got the right one. His comments were sensible, but it was unclear to me what I was actually supposed to do here and why. I was staying in France and I didn’t need to enter Switzerland at all, so I went for the French option. This proved not to be quite the correct choice.

I got outside and realised I needed to walk down here, but there’s a problem as someone has taken part in some ‘bring your own fence to work day’ arrangement. Switzerland is in Schengen, so I hadn’t quite expected this level of fencing everywhere. I did wonder perhaps the Swiss just wanted to keep their side tidy, but that seemed a slightly stereotypical thought….

I realised from Google maps that there was another pedestrian walkway so I left the French side of the airport to discover that it was a gated footpath for those who had a code. I considered this whole arrangement as sub-optimal.

So, after navigating the ‘Great Fence of EuroAirport’ outside, I was genuinely bracing myself for some sort of Herculean faff to get back to the side I actually needed, or some sort of passport check. The only alternative seemed to be hailing a taxi which would have been an act of such wild extravagance my thrifty soul practically recoiled at the thought, so that wasn’t happening. However, it it was just like meandering through a shopping centre, there was no security, customs or border controls. If I had wanted, I would have had time to buy a Toblerone and everything.

And that little stroll back through the airport meant that I was back on track and heading towards my hotel in France.

It’s hard to read here, but it says “open borders” and I wish they were at this airport. It was then a three mile walk and it was pleasing that they had street-lights all the way along the path, but less pleasing that they hadn’t switched them on. The road was relatively busy and my eye-sight adjusted, so it was a fast walk and I then realised that this path was also heavily secured, I think a legacy of just over ten years ago when Switzerland weren’t in Schengen. Which meant that I had to walk into Switzerland which isn’t what I had intended.

There’s the Swiss border. I was in Switzerland for around five minutes and only because there was no way to access all the paths in France. And this is a legacy of the history of this airport, which was built in France as Basel didn’t have space, a process all overseen by a 1949 international treaty. So, because of this, the pre-Schengen path was something of a secure corridor straight into Switzerland, logical as I had left the Switzerland side of the airport.

Still on the Swiss side, there’s the former border control post, now just used as a customs post.

There was no-one there and people could walk freely through. Luckily the hotel was literally a one minute walk away from here and I was pleased to get there after yet another slightly unexpected journey. I had started to consider myself as an expert in the Swiss and French border, although that was until the next day, but I’ll save that riveting story….