City tours that inspire - for 18 years

Around 20 years ago, my wife enrolled me at the Rheinfelden Baden adult education center - they had advertised a course to train future city guides for both Rheinfelden.

She enrolled me because she knew, of course, that as a linguist and historian I had always been interested in the history of our town - but at the time, becoming a town guide was not an ambition at all - it was just about getting to know our Rheinfelden history.

But at some point - exactly 18 years ago - I received a request from Tourismus Rheinfelden asking if I would be interested in giving a few guided tours. Why not, I thought to myself, and so I started "doing a few guided tours" - there are now over one thousand and six hundred!

My wife and I love to travel whenever budget and work allow. And yes, of course we do guided tours wherever possible. At the same time, I find out how colleagues in other countries and places organize their tours - after all, such input is always valuable - you never stop learning.

Although I've been giving guided tours for so long now, I'm always excited and curious before a tour about who I'm going to meet, where my guests' interests might lie. Where they come from and what they expect from the tour.

As I have also designed and researched some of the themed tours myself, I can certainly focus on a specific topic during a tour - for example, guests from the healthcare sector are always interested in the topic of the plague - the corona period has of course also made the topic of pandemics and the different ways of dealing with them between then and now generally exciting for them.

There is also some nice feedback from time to time and I am always very happy when I can entice guests who previously found guided tours rather annoying out of their shell and they say goodbye at the end with a smile on their face - and sometimes even come back for another tour. Of course, over the years I have also given tours to famous people - although I make no distinction between them and other guests - it is the guest's interest and not their social status that makes a tour valuable for me.

There have also been kind and empathetic letters after tours - or even invitations - which of course makes me happy and honors me every time - because I know that my way of giving tours can't be completely wrong and even after so many years it's always good to get positive feedback.

Of course, there were also some funny encounters - I still remember a tour with a "Guggemusik" band where the whole group came to me already quite drunk. We looked at each other and I offered them two alternatives: 1. they could all keep their beer cans in their hands and continue drinking, but I would then say goodbye - without resentment and anger, and I would then also waive my guide's fee - or 2. The beer cans all ended up in the garbage can and we tried to get a guided tour of the town off the ground - I offered to give them "the beer history(ies) of Rheinfelden" as the main topic of the tour, which was met with great enthusiasm - and we actually went on a tour together, which left all the members with satisfied faces at the end.

Once, a lady contacted me who had already been on one of my guided tours as a guest - and asked me if she and her partner could get married as part of a guided tour of the town - and in such a way that nobody would find out about the plan - it was supposed to be a surprise for family and friends.

We then discussed the whole thing with the registrar and came up with the plan to simply end the tour in the historic town hall hall (also the registry office), which we almost always visit with guided tours - and to hold the wedding ceremony there as a surprise. As a special gag, I had arranged with the registrar that he should join us "by chance" and ask if he should marry someone while he was here... so they both stood up and said, you know what, that's a good idea - just marry us while you're here... all the families and guests thought it was a joke and only when the wedding procedure started did they start to realize....

I will never forget the looks on people's faces!

When I am asked if there are any favorite places for me, I answer that almost every corner of our old town is simply beautiful - but that depending on the time of day and the weather, there are alleys and corners that feel special - depending on the sun, the lighting on the "Känzeli" behind the Johanniter Chapel is unique. But during the plague and medieval tours, I like to walk through the narrow "Maiengässli" at night - especially when it's still raining lightly - you can simply be better transported back into the atmosphere of the "dark Middle Ages", and the horror stories become an almost authentic experience - you can almost smell the stench of the medieval alley.

It is a great gift for me that I have been able to bring the history of our beautiful historic Zähringen old town closer to our guests for so many years - and I hope, if my health permits, that I can continue to do this with the same passion for a few more years.

Robi Conrad, 75 years old, has been a town guide in Rheinfelden for 18 years. When he is not guiding guests through Rheinfelden, he enjoys traveling and discovering new places on guided tours of the town.