Rain doesn't have to mean a day on the sofa. These are the indoor plans that fill a morning or afternoon: museums where kids press buttons and make paper, play halls with trampolines and ninja courses, climbing walls and warm indoor pools. A few sit just over the German border, and one is a day trip by train. Here's what we checked, from Museum Tinguely to aquabasilea.
Four floors and more than 1,000 square meters of historical toys: over 2,500 teddy bears (the most comprehensive collection in the world, many by Steiff), dolls, old dolls' houses, grocery shops and 1:12 miniatures. Many scenes start moving at the push of a button.
On an animated tablet tour, virtual figures move through the displays, and a kids' track sends zeppelins flying and music notes dancing out of a gramophone.
The permanent galleries fill an old town building with dinosaurs, a mammoth and saber-toothed tiger, whales and fish, ammonites and other fossils, and invertebrates from squid to butterflies.
One gallery follows a butterfly from egg to adult, another covers threatened and extinct animals like the quagga and dodo, and Showcase Nature brings together the birds, mammals and minerals of Switzerland.
The Swiss Museum of Paper, Writing and Printing sits in a late medieval mill beside a rushing mill stream, where the mill wheel turns and the stamping mill hammers away. Kids scoop their own sheet of paper, write with a goose quill, try a typewriter, typeset their name and make marbled paper. Craftspeople work the historic machines on site, so families watch printing and bookbinding done the old way.
Museum Tinguely holds the world's largest collection of work by Swiss artist Jean Tinguely: moving machine sculptures built around wheels and motors, most of them still in working order. The permanent exhibition has many hands-on spots where visitors set things in motion.
On the second floor, a glass wall looks into the open workshop where restorers keep the machines running. Solitude Park and the Rhine bank sit right outside.
MUKS is a small museum in a historic building in Riehen, the village on the Swiss-German border. Its permanent Spiel (play) exhibition fills rooms themed on dreaming, living and cheating with old toys, odd inventions and a dream bubble to slip into.
A second permanent show, Village, tells Riehen's history. Outside, a courtyard and garden have seating, sun umbrellas, games and a self-service kiosk.
Kiddy Park Basel is an indoor play hall with a ball pit, a trampoline jump area, climbing structures and obstacle courses. Babies get soft crawling zones, and under-6s have their own area with smaller equipment.
The play is active and low-tech, with no screens or entertainers. Staff supervise the floor, parents can sit in the lounge, and a snack corner and the Munchkin Island restaurant serve kids' meals.
Hoppolino is a large indoor soft play center. The main draw is a 6 m Spider-Tower with several climbing levels, plus a big climbing frame, a spiral slide that drops into an extra-large ball pit, a 4 m trampoline and a go-kart track.
The smallest children get a separate toddler area, and an interactive floor-and-wall game zone is listed as coming soon.
A big indoor funpark with two giant trampolines (over 20 jump beds with basketball hoops and a tumble line), a two-level kids ninja course, an inflatable donut slide, a climbing volcano with a slide, tunnel and wave slides, and a small soccer pitch.
A three-level play structure with bridges, tunnels and a fast steel slide has a separate toddler area.
Jump Factory Basel is a trampoline park in Münchenstein with around 20 zones on one ticket. Kids bounce on the mega and long trampolines, launch into the foam pit, run up the warped wall, race down the speed slide and take on a ninja warrior course, climbing wall, battle beam, ropes course and zip line.
Parents who don't jump can wait in the café while kids play.
ELYS Boulderloft is a bouldering gym with over 2,000 m² of climbing surface and new problems set every week. Kids under 13 boulder in the New Hall with a parent who climbs too, and can earn a bouldering license that opens the Big Hall.
Younger kids have the movement landscape, a play-and-run area with its own family bistro.
aquabasilea is a big indoor water park with seven slides totaling 824 meters, from the open Family Splash tube to the near-vertical Cliffdrop and the dark Extrême, which hits 59 km/h.
There's a wave pool with kickboards, a toddler pool, two wild-water channels and a current channel. Outside are a grotto, water mushrooms and a warm kids' paddling pool.
An indoor water park with five pools: a wave pool over 40 meters long under a glass pyramid, a 25-meter lap pool, a 34 °C leisure pool with a wide wave slide, and an outdoor pool.
Big kids head for the 100-meter Black Hole, the wild-water slide and a funnel slide from about 10 meters up. Toddlers get a closed-off splash pool with spray animals and a mini slide.
Switzerland's most-visited museum covers rail, road, air, water and space travel. Kids can see original locomotives, two Swissair planes, rockets and Mars rovers, a submarine, and a 31.5-meter model of the Gotthard railway. A walk-in cube makes the floor turn into a wall.
Outside, younger kids ride scooters, climb into play buses and take the miniature garden railway. A planetarium, a film theater and a chocolate ride share the site.
An indoor play hall that is part of the IMPULSIV leisure center, just over the border from Basel. The centerpiece is a big climbing tower with a tube slide, softball shooter, wave slide and rope course, plus a free-fall slide, electric go-karts, a trampoline, a wobble mountain and a soccer cage.
Toddlers get their own area with slides, a ball pool and big Lego blocks.
An indoor mini golf course with 18 holes, played in darkened rooms under UV light. Fluorescent painted scenery and 3D backdrops glow around every hole, and players wear 3D glasses that make the walls pop out.
The same building has a free-roam virtual reality arena, an arcade with billiards, basketball and air hockey, a bistro and a terrace.
Rain doesn't have to mean a day on the sofa. These are the indoor plans that fill a morning or afternoon: museums where kids press buttons and make paper, play halls with trampolines and ninja courses, climbing walls and warm indoor pools. A few sit just over the German border, and one is a day trip by train. Here's what we checked, from Museum Tinguely to aquabasilea.
Four floors and more than 1,000 square meters of historical toys: over 2,500 teddy bears (the most comprehensive collection in the world, many by Steiff), dolls, old dolls' houses, grocery shops and 1:12 miniatures. Many scenes start moving at the push of a button.
On an animated tablet tour, virtual figures move through the displays, and a kids' track sends zeppelins flying and music notes dancing out of a gramophone.
The permanent galleries fill an old town building with dinosaurs, a mammoth and saber-toothed tiger, whales and fish, ammonites and other fossils, and invertebrates from squid to butterflies.
One gallery follows a butterfly from egg to adult, another covers threatened and extinct animals like the quagga and dodo, and Showcase Nature brings together the birds, mammals and minerals of Switzerland.
The Swiss Museum of Paper, Writing and Printing sits in a late medieval mill beside a rushing mill stream, where the mill wheel turns and the stamping mill hammers away. Kids scoop their own sheet of paper, write with a goose quill, try a typewriter, typeset their name and make marbled paper. Craftspeople work the historic machines on site, so families watch printing and bookbinding done the old way.
Museum Tinguely holds the world's largest collection of work by Swiss artist Jean Tinguely: moving machine sculptures built around wheels and motors, most of them still in working order. The permanent exhibition has many hands-on spots where visitors set things in motion.
On the second floor, a glass wall looks into the open workshop where restorers keep the machines running. Solitude Park and the Rhine bank sit right outside.
MUKS is a small museum in a historic building in Riehen, the village on the Swiss-German border. Its permanent Spiel (play) exhibition fills rooms themed on dreaming, living and cheating with old toys, odd inventions and a dream bubble to slip into.
A second permanent show, Village, tells Riehen's history. Outside, a courtyard and garden have seating, sun umbrellas, games and a self-service kiosk.
Kiddy Park Basel is an indoor play hall with a ball pit, a trampoline jump area, climbing structures and obstacle courses. Babies get soft crawling zones, and under-6s have their own area with smaller equipment.
The play is active and low-tech, with no screens or entertainers. Staff supervise the floor, parents can sit in the lounge, and a snack corner and the Munchkin Island restaurant serve kids' meals.
Hoppolino is a large indoor soft play center. The main draw is a 6 m Spider-Tower with several climbing levels, plus a big climbing frame, a spiral slide that drops into an extra-large ball pit, a 4 m trampoline and a go-kart track.
The smallest children get a separate toddler area, and an interactive floor-and-wall game zone is listed as coming soon.
A big indoor funpark with two giant trampolines (over 20 jump beds with basketball hoops and a tumble line), a two-level kids ninja course, an inflatable donut slide, a climbing volcano with a slide, tunnel and wave slides, and a small soccer pitch.
A three-level play structure with bridges, tunnels and a fast steel slide has a separate toddler area.
Jump Factory Basel is a trampoline park in Münchenstein with around 20 zones on one ticket. Kids bounce on the mega and long trampolines, launch into the foam pit, run up the warped wall, race down the speed slide and take on a ninja warrior course, climbing wall, battle beam, ropes course and zip line.
Parents who don't jump can wait in the café while kids play.
ELYS Boulderloft is a bouldering gym with over 2,000 m² of climbing surface and new problems set every week. Kids under 13 boulder in the New Hall with a parent who climbs too, and can earn a bouldering license that opens the Big Hall.
Younger kids have the movement landscape, a play-and-run area with its own family bistro.
aquabasilea is a big indoor water park with seven slides totaling 824 meters, from the open Family Splash tube to the near-vertical Cliffdrop and the dark Extrême, which hits 59 km/h.
There's a wave pool with kickboards, a toddler pool, two wild-water channels and a current channel. Outside are a grotto, water mushrooms and a warm kids' paddling pool.
An indoor water park with five pools: a wave pool over 40 meters long under a glass pyramid, a 25-meter lap pool, a 34 °C leisure pool with a wide wave slide, and an outdoor pool.
Big kids head for the 100-meter Black Hole, the wild-water slide and a funnel slide from about 10 meters up. Toddlers get a closed-off splash pool with spray animals and a mini slide.
Switzerland's most-visited museum covers rail, road, air, water and space travel. Kids can see original locomotives, two Swissair planes, rockets and Mars rovers, a submarine, and a 31.5-meter model of the Gotthard railway. A walk-in cube makes the floor turn into a wall.
Outside, younger kids ride scooters, climb into play buses and take the miniature garden railway. A planetarium, a film theater and a chocolate ride share the site.
An indoor play hall that is part of the IMPULSIV leisure center, just over the border from Basel. The centerpiece is a big climbing tower with a tube slide, softball shooter, wave slide and rope course, plus a free-fall slide, electric go-karts, a trampoline, a wobble mountain and a soccer cage.
Toddlers get their own area with slides, a ball pool and big Lego blocks.
An indoor mini golf course with 18 holes, played in darkened rooms under UV light. Fluorescent painted scenery and 3D backdrops glow around every hole, and players wear 3D glasses that make the walls pop out.
The same building has a free-roam virtual reality arena, an arcade with billiards, basketball and air hockey, a bistro and a terrace.
