Some outings earn a second visit, then a tenth. This is where we'd send a family new to the city, or anyone after a sure bet for a Saturday: animals up close, museums where kids get their hands busy, a river crossing pushed by the current, pools for hot days and a couple of big trips out of town. Here's what we checked, from the Zolli to Europa-Park.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
A wildlife park in the Lange Erlen riverside woods along the Wiese, run by the Erlen-Verein since 1871. It keeps native animals across about 20 hectares: European bison, red and fallow deer, chamois, lynx, wildcats and foxes, plus owls in aviaries and waterbirds on the ponds.
Rare Swiss farm breeds such as Valais sheep and woolly pigs round it out.
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.
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.
Gartenbad St. Jakob, the outdoor pool locals call the Joggeli, has a heated 50m pool, a family pool with a 1m diving pit, a non-swimmer pool and a paddling pool. Kids can go down several slides, including a speed slide, or jump from a diving tower with platforms up to 10m over its own pit.
There are also two beach volleyball courts, a kiosk and a restaurant.
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.
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.
Some outings earn a second visit, then a tenth. This is where we'd send a family new to the city, or anyone after a sure bet for a Saturday: animals up close, museums where kids get their hands busy, a river crossing pushed by the current, pools for hot days and a couple of big trips out of town. Here's what we checked, from the Zolli to Europa-Park.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
A wildlife park in the Lange Erlen riverside woods along the Wiese, run by the Erlen-Verein since 1871. It keeps native animals across about 20 hectares: European bison, red and fallow deer, chamois, lynx, wildcats and foxes, plus owls in aviaries and waterbirds on the ponds.
Rare Swiss farm breeds such as Valais sheep and woolly pigs round it out.
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.
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.
Gartenbad St. Jakob, the outdoor pool locals call the Joggeli, has a heated 50m pool, a family pool with a 1m diving pit, a non-swimmer pool and a paddling pool. Kids can go down several slides, including a speed slide, or jump from a diving tower with platforms up to 10m over its own pit.
There are also two beach volleyball courts, a kiosk and a restaurant.
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.
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.
