Venice vs. Basel

It's really Italy vs. Switzerland. Such a big difference! Venice is chaotic, and logistics is a nightmare. Total tourist trap. People are rude 99% of the time, service is a non-concept here. But great history, and of course its visage is unique in so many ways - copied by and immortalised by Vegas and now extended its legacy to Macau! - funny that we kept joking that Venice looks like the Venetian Hotel in Macau...only more run-down and more chaotic, and not air-conditioned.

On other hand, Basel is clean, orderly, and has an amazing transport system (tram). You really see "BMW living" here (BMW=Bicycle, Metro, Walking) - green living in action. Fantastic musuems (eg, Beyeler) and collections. But could Basel be a bit boring after a while?! It's a small town afterall.

BTW strangest incidence - even in this small town, ran into an ex colleague in the tram station. He just moved from Tokyo to Basel to work for a pharma company HQ-ed here. What is the chance of that?! That capped a day of 12 hours of art-seeing - which is just the max one could take in a day.