Grandparents or old friends in town, and everyone wants something different. These are the Basel outings that work for a five-year-old and a seventy-year-old at once: boats pushed by the river, towers to climb, animals, and machines kids can set moving. Most are in the city, a few make a day trip. Here's what we checked, from the Rhine ferries to the Roman theater at Augusta Raurica.
Four ferries carry foot passengers across the Rhine between Grossbasel and Kleinbasel. Each hangs from a cable over the river and crosses on the current alone, with no engine. Each has its own name and landing: Wild Maa at St. Alban, Leu by the Münster, Vogel Gryff at Klingental and Ueli at St. Johann. Kids can watch the river push the boat from bank to bank.
Basel Minster is the city's former cathedral, now a Reformed Protestant church, built of red sandstone with colored roof tiles and two slim towers. Kids can climb both the Georgsturm and the Martinsturm, about 250 steps each up a narrow staircase, for a wide view over Basel.
Below the Georgsturm, look for a picture from 1372 of Saint George fighting a remarkably small dragon.
Switzerland's oldest zoo, opened in 1874, holds over 500 species in the Birsig stream valley, a short walk from Basel SBB station. Kids can watch king and gentoo penguins in the Vivarium aquarium, gorillas and orangutans in the monkey house, lions and cheetahs in the Etosha area, and Indian rhinos sharing their ponds with otters. Locals call it the Zolli.
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.
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.
Basler Personenschifffahrt runs passenger ships on the Rhine from the Schifflände landing stage in the old town. The Panorama Sightseeing Cruise passes the cathedral, the Roche towers and the Tinguely Museum, then heads into the Rhine port, where cranes load goods onto freighters.
The longer Rhine Panorama & Locks Cruise travels upriver to Rheinfelden, passing through the locks at Birsfelden and Augst on the way.
Basel's oldest cellar theater, founded in 1943, plays in the vaulted Zehntenkeller beside Basel Minster. Its family program turns children's books and fairy tales into shows with marionettes and table puppets, from a young Scottish ghost learning to scare to The Wizard of Oz with flying monkeys.
A separate evening program of plays and talks is aimed at adults.
Augusta Raurica is the excavated Roman town at Augst, with more than twenty monuments to view, walk on or touch. Kids can sit in the best-preserved Roman theater north of the Alps, stand inside a Roman sewer channel and explore a furnished Roman house modeled on a Pompeii villa.
The museum puts some finds at kid eye level, and the animal park keeps breeds similar to Roman farm animals.
Rheinbad St. Johann, known locally as the Rhybeli, is a wooden river bathing house built in the 19th century below the Johanniterbrücke. Two 24-meter pools sit in the Rhine itself, next to a sun deck with free umbrellas and an Italian kiosk serving pasta, pinsa and espresso.
Swimming is unsupervised and only for strong swimmers, and the club that runs it says the layout does not suit small children.
Gempenturm is a 28-meter steel lookout tower with five levels, standing in the woods at the edge of the Gempen plateau. From the top, kids can pick out Basel, the Baselbiet, Alsace and the Vosges, and the Black Forest.
Hiking trails, some with steep climbs, loop around the tower, and the Gempenturm restaurant sits right next to it.
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.
Germany's largest theme park splits its grounds into 18 themed areas, each built around a European country. Rides run from fairy-tale boat trips and the Fjord-Rafting river ride to Pegasus, a junior coaster the whole family can ride, and big coasters like Voltron Nevera and blue fire.
Smaller kids also get a ball pool and an adventure playground. The resort runs Rulantica, a separate water park, and six themed hotels.
Grandparents or old friends in town, and everyone wants something different. These are the Basel outings that work for a five-year-old and a seventy-year-old at once: boats pushed by the river, towers to climb, animals, and machines kids can set moving. Most are in the city, a few make a day trip. Here's what we checked, from the Rhine ferries to the Roman theater at Augusta Raurica.
Four ferries carry foot passengers across the Rhine between Grossbasel and Kleinbasel. Each hangs from a cable over the river and crosses on the current alone, with no engine. Each has its own name and landing: Wild Maa at St. Alban, Leu by the Münster, Vogel Gryff at Klingental and Ueli at St. Johann. Kids can watch the river push the boat from bank to bank.
Basel Minster is the city's former cathedral, now a Reformed Protestant church, built of red sandstone with colored roof tiles and two slim towers. Kids can climb both the Georgsturm and the Martinsturm, about 250 steps each up a narrow staircase, for a wide view over Basel.
Below the Georgsturm, look for a picture from 1372 of Saint George fighting a remarkably small dragon.
Switzerland's oldest zoo, opened in 1874, holds over 500 species in the Birsig stream valley, a short walk from Basel SBB station. Kids can watch king and gentoo penguins in the Vivarium aquarium, gorillas and orangutans in the monkey house, lions and cheetahs in the Etosha area, and Indian rhinos sharing their ponds with otters. Locals call it the Zolli.
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.
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.
Basler Personenschifffahrt runs passenger ships on the Rhine from the Schifflände landing stage in the old town. The Panorama Sightseeing Cruise passes the cathedral, the Roche towers and the Tinguely Museum, then heads into the Rhine port, where cranes load goods onto freighters.
The longer Rhine Panorama & Locks Cruise travels upriver to Rheinfelden, passing through the locks at Birsfelden and Augst on the way.
Basel's oldest cellar theater, founded in 1943, plays in the vaulted Zehntenkeller beside Basel Minster. Its family program turns children's books and fairy tales into shows with marionettes and table puppets, from a young Scottish ghost learning to scare to The Wizard of Oz with flying monkeys.
A separate evening program of plays and talks is aimed at adults.
Augusta Raurica is the excavated Roman town at Augst, with more than twenty monuments to view, walk on or touch. Kids can sit in the best-preserved Roman theater north of the Alps, stand inside a Roman sewer channel and explore a furnished Roman house modeled on a Pompeii villa.
The museum puts some finds at kid eye level, and the animal park keeps breeds similar to Roman farm animals.
Rheinbad St. Johann, known locally as the Rhybeli, is a wooden river bathing house built in the 19th century below the Johanniterbrücke. Two 24-meter pools sit in the Rhine itself, next to a sun deck with free umbrellas and an Italian kiosk serving pasta, pinsa and espresso.
Swimming is unsupervised and only for strong swimmers, and the club that runs it says the layout does not suit small children.
Gempenturm is a 28-meter steel lookout tower with five levels, standing in the woods at the edge of the Gempen plateau. From the top, kids can pick out Basel, the Baselbiet, Alsace and the Vosges, and the Black Forest.
Hiking trails, some with steep climbs, loop around the tower, and the Gempenturm restaurant sits right next to it.
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.
Germany's largest theme park splits its grounds into 18 themed areas, each built around a European country. Rides run from fairy-tale boat trips and the Fjord-Rafting river ride to Pegasus, a junior coaster the whole family can ride, and big coasters like Voltron Nevera and blue fire.
Smaller kids also get a ball pool and an adventure playground. The resort runs Rulantica, a separate water park, and six themed hotels.
