Saint John Nepomuk and tramway 10 of Basel
7 February 2022
The world’s most international and inter-cantonal tramway is number 10, which runs from Dornach (canton of Solothurn) via villages in canton Basel-Landschaft (e.g., Arlesheim, Binningen, and Bottmingen), the city of Basel (canton of Basel-Stadt), and the village of Leymen in Alsace (France) back to Rodersdorf (again canton of Solothurn).
The course of this tramway, which is almost 27 kilometres long, says something about the capricious borders of the cantons and these countries. This tramline also connects a historical figure, even a saint. John Nepomuk (1350-1393) was a priest and the confessor of Sophia of Bavaria (1376-1425), wife of King Wenceslaus of Luxembourg (1361-1419), a Roman-German king in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
Bättwil (Canton Solothurn)
He resided in Prague, the most important city in Bohemia (Czech Republic).Prague’s grandeur and the statue of Nepomuk on the Charles Bridge are related to this period.
Wenceslaus had Nepomuk executed by drowning in the Vltava (Moldau) River because the priest did not want to violate his wife’s confessional secret (with a political conflict between the bishop and the king in the background). Nepomuk was canonised in 1729. He is the patron saint of the secrecy of confession and bridges.
For this reason, his statue is on the bridge over the Birs in Dornach, although the saint did not prevent the bridge from being destroyed by the high waters of the Bir in 1813s.
The Nepomuk Chapel
Near Rodersdorf, in the Alsace village of Wolfschwiller, stands a little chapel dedicated to this saint (Jean Népomucène in French). The old chapel was destroyed during the French Revolution in 1789 and was renovated again in 1893. Hikers of the Swiss Alpine Club (Schweizer Alpen Club, SAC) occasionally perform the Dona Nobis Pacem at or in the chapel for his and later their salvation.
Albert Hofmann (1906-2008) provided an entirely different spiritual experience. He lived on the Rittimatti in the Swiss municipality of Burg in the Leimental. He discovered LSD in 1943. He became very old, which cannot be said of all users of LSD in the Flower Power period of the sixties.
Burg Castle in Burg
The Rittimattenweg is part of a hiking trail from Rodersdorf via the French villages of Biederthal and Lutter back to Rodersdorf. This area is the source of the little river Birsig, which flows through Basel and enters the Rhine underground at the Hotel Les Trois Rois. The first operator of the Birsigthalbahn company was named after this river in 1887, as was the Birsig viaduct in Basel.
Wolfschwiller
The area has fertile clay soil that offers good opportunities for agriculture. Several castles still bear witness to its economic importance from the Middle Ages onwards.
The inhabitants Of this French-Swiss border area can still communicate in the local Allemanian (Oberrheinallemanisch) dialect, although their knowledge of it is rapidly declining.
The Swiss Alpine Club
The Swiss Alpine Club (Schweizer Alpen Club, SAC/Club Alpin Suisse, CAS) regularly organises hiking trips in this region (and elsewhere).
The SAC organises ski tours, mountaineering, and other high mountain sports and (hiking) activities in different regions.
Proofreader: Adrian Dubock