The Vorstädte wrap around the Old Town, and they pack a lot of kid plans into a few walkable streets. Here we gather the museums, fountains, river spots and family events in the neighborhood: hands-on collections for a rainy afternoon, places to cool off by the Rhine when it's hot, and shows and markets when the season brings them. Most are a short walk or tram ride apart.
Basel's Herbstmesse, "d Mäss" to locals, has run every autumn since 1471 and is the biggest funfair in Switzerland. Rides, game booths and food stalls fill squares on both sides of the Rhine: old-time carousels and a Ferris wheel beside the Münster, faster rides in Kleinbasel, and a pottery and craft market under the plane trees on Petersplatz. Snack stops: Mässmogge candy, spiced Magenbrot and hot chestnuts.
A whole special exhibition on the teddy bear, inside a toy museum that holds one of the world's largest collections of historic teddies. It traces the bear from old legends and Basel's own Bear Dance to the 1907 teddy craze, Winnie-the-Pooh, Paddington and the Haribo Goldbear.
Kids can hug a giant plush bear and play at a teddy first-aid station between the glass cases.
Basel's newest Christmas market, a village of huts at Theaterplatz that spreads into the nearby squares. Around 40 huts sell local design and crafts, plus food from the region and around the world.
Kids get their own areas, and the program promises stilt walkers in costume, fairy-tale storytelling, craft afternoons and a carousel. It suits families who want browsing, snacks and Christmas lights in one outing.
Ballett Basel and choreographer Marco Goecke turn Astrid Lindgren's children's classic into a dance fairy tale. Orphan Bo, raised by an unloving foster family, reaches the Land of Faraway, learns he is Prince Mio, finds his father and, with his friend Jum-Jum, stands up to the cruel knight Kato.
Goecke's precise, playful movement builds clear pictures and leaves room for kids' own imagination and humor.
Kids stamp, print, write and draw their own advent calendar at the Basler Papiermühle, a hands-on museum of paper, writing and printing inside a medieval mill: 24 doors, 24 surprises.
It's an open workshop, so families drop in and work at their own pace. Teens and adults make one too, and the museum's other stations, from scooping paper to old printing presses, come with the same ticket.
A family concert based on Janosch's story of Josa, a boy who is given a magic fiddle. Its sound can make anyone small and weak or big and strong, so he sets off for the moon to enchant it too, with adventures all the way to the end of the world.
Suits kids who like adventure stories and are curious about classical music.
Santiglaus (St. Nicholas) drops in at Haus zum Kirschgarten with his helper Schmutzli. Kids who dare can step up and recite a little poem in front of him.
The rest of the family watches from the garden with warm drinks. It suits kids who can say a short rhyme in German, and younger siblings who just want to see him.
Jean Tinguely built this fountain in 1977 where the stage of the old city theater once stood. Ten metal machines, some made from the theater's old stage parts, turn, wobble and spray water across a wide, shallow pool, driven by electric motors.
Stone benches ring the pool, so parents can sit while kids watch the sprays up close.
One of the oldest botanical gardens in the world, founded in 1589 and next to the Spalentor since 1898. More than 7,500 plant species grow in the outdoor beds and greenhouses.
Kids can find cocoa, bananas and coffee in the Tropical Greenhouse, giant water lily pads in the Victoria house, century-old golden barrel cacti in the Succulent House, and tiny frogs hiding among the tropical plants.
The Swiss Fire Brigade Museum follows how firefighting equipment developed, with objects dating back as far as the 13th century. Its several floors run from medieval hand-operated spraying devices to modern oxygen breathing sets, collected across Switzerland and mostly from the Basel region.
Kids who are into fire engines and old machines get plenty of historic equipment to study up close.
Cartoonmuseum Basel is a museum of narrative drawing: comics, graphic novels, cartoons, caricature and animation. Its changing exhibitions draw on more than 12,000 original works, shown in an old townhouse renovated and extended by Herzog & de Meuron.
Each exhibition gets a Cartoon Sunday, a family afternoon where kids try drawing and comic techniques in the studio. It suits kids who like to draw more than kids who want to run.
Kunstmuseum Basel holds the oldest public art collection in the world, which began with a cabinet of Holbein works bought by the city and university in 1661. The Hauptbau covers painting from the Middle Ages to postwar modernism, with Rubens, Rembrandt, Monet, van Gogh and Picasso along the way.
An underground passage leads to the Neubau across the street, home to the big special exhibitions.
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.
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.
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.
The Vorstädte wrap around the Old Town, and they pack a lot of kid plans into a few walkable streets. Here we gather the museums, fountains, river spots and family events in the neighborhood: hands-on collections for a rainy afternoon, places to cool off by the Rhine when it's hot, and shows and markets when the season brings them. Most are a short walk or tram ride apart.
Basel's Herbstmesse, "d Mäss" to locals, has run every autumn since 1471 and is the biggest funfair in Switzerland. Rides, game booths and food stalls fill squares on both sides of the Rhine: old-time carousels and a Ferris wheel beside the Münster, faster rides in Kleinbasel, and a pottery and craft market under the plane trees on Petersplatz. Snack stops: Mässmogge candy, spiced Magenbrot and hot chestnuts.
A whole special exhibition on the teddy bear, inside a toy museum that holds one of the world's largest collections of historic teddies. It traces the bear from old legends and Basel's own Bear Dance to the 1907 teddy craze, Winnie-the-Pooh, Paddington and the Haribo Goldbear.
Kids can hug a giant plush bear and play at a teddy first-aid station between the glass cases.
Basel's newest Christmas market, a village of huts at Theaterplatz that spreads into the nearby squares. Around 40 huts sell local design and crafts, plus food from the region and around the world.
Kids get their own areas, and the program promises stilt walkers in costume, fairy-tale storytelling, craft afternoons and a carousel. It suits families who want browsing, snacks and Christmas lights in one outing.
Ballett Basel and choreographer Marco Goecke turn Astrid Lindgren's children's classic into a dance fairy tale. Orphan Bo, raised by an unloving foster family, reaches the Land of Faraway, learns he is Prince Mio, finds his father and, with his friend Jum-Jum, stands up to the cruel knight Kato.
Goecke's precise, playful movement builds clear pictures and leaves room for kids' own imagination and humor.
Kids stamp, print, write and draw their own advent calendar at the Basler Papiermühle, a hands-on museum of paper, writing and printing inside a medieval mill: 24 doors, 24 surprises.
It's an open workshop, so families drop in and work at their own pace. Teens and adults make one too, and the museum's other stations, from scooping paper to old printing presses, come with the same ticket.
A family concert based on Janosch's story of Josa, a boy who is given a magic fiddle. Its sound can make anyone small and weak or big and strong, so he sets off for the moon to enchant it too, with adventures all the way to the end of the world.
Suits kids who like adventure stories and are curious about classical music.
Santiglaus (St. Nicholas) drops in at Haus zum Kirschgarten with his helper Schmutzli. Kids who dare can step up and recite a little poem in front of him.
The rest of the family watches from the garden with warm drinks. It suits kids who can say a short rhyme in German, and younger siblings who just want to see him.
Jean Tinguely built this fountain in 1977 where the stage of the old city theater once stood. Ten metal machines, some made from the theater's old stage parts, turn, wobble and spray water across a wide, shallow pool, driven by electric motors.
Stone benches ring the pool, so parents can sit while kids watch the sprays up close.
One of the oldest botanical gardens in the world, founded in 1589 and next to the Spalentor since 1898. More than 7,500 plant species grow in the outdoor beds and greenhouses.
Kids can find cocoa, bananas and coffee in the Tropical Greenhouse, giant water lily pads in the Victoria house, century-old golden barrel cacti in the Succulent House, and tiny frogs hiding among the tropical plants.
The Swiss Fire Brigade Museum follows how firefighting equipment developed, with objects dating back as far as the 13th century. Its several floors run from medieval hand-operated spraying devices to modern oxygen breathing sets, collected across Switzerland and mostly from the Basel region.
Kids who are into fire engines and old machines get plenty of historic equipment to study up close.
Cartoonmuseum Basel is a museum of narrative drawing: comics, graphic novels, cartoons, caricature and animation. Its changing exhibitions draw on more than 12,000 original works, shown in an old townhouse renovated and extended by Herzog & de Meuron.
Each exhibition gets a Cartoon Sunday, a family afternoon where kids try drawing and comic techniques in the studio. It suits kids who like to draw more than kids who want to run.
Kunstmuseum Basel holds the oldest public art collection in the world, which began with a cabinet of Holbein works bought by the city and university in 1661. The Hauptbau covers painting from the Middle Ages to postwar modernism, with Rubens, Rembrandt, Monet, van Gogh and Picasso along the way.
An underground passage leads to the Neubau across the street, home to the big special exhibitions.
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.
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.
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.
