Three days in Basel: the city that voted to buy its Picassos
Two nights on the Rhine in the corner where three countries touch, with a cathedral terrace, three of Europe's best art museums and a river the locals swim home down.
- Length
- 3 days, 2 nights
- Where you stay
- Basel
- Places
- 5 across 3 days
In 1967 the people of Basel were asked, in a public vote, whether the city should spend a large sum of money on two Picassos. They said yes. Picasso heard about it and gave the museum four more works. No other city in Europe has a story quite like that, and once you know it, Basel makes sense: a town of 180,000 people with the art collection of a capital, paid for by chemistry and defended by referendum.
It sits in the corner where Switzerland, France and Germany meet, and the border is not an abstraction here: trams run into Germany, the airport has a French exit and a Swiss one, and half the city's museums are a short ride from a country you did not wake up in.
Between the museums there is a compact medieval old town on a hill, a red sandstone cathedral with a terrace over the water, and a river that in summer functions as public transport. People pack their clothes into a waterproof bag, get in upstream and float home.
Highlights
- The Kunstmuseum, publicly owned since 1661 and holding more Holbein than anywhere else
- Renzo Piano's Fondation Beyeler at Riehen, with the Monet water lilies and a room of Rothkos
- Jean Tinguely's scrap-metal machines clanking away in a gallery on the river bank
- The Basler Münster, begun in 1019, with Erasmus buried inside and a terrace over the river behind it
- Swimming down the Rhine in summer, which is a normal way to get home here
Where to stay
Basel, two nights
Grossbasel, the south bank, holds the old town, the cathedral and most of the museums. Kleinbasel opposite is where people drink and eat, and where the river bank is set up for sitting on. Either side is fine to sleep in, and the bridges between them take five minutes.
Almost everything below is inside a fifteen minute tram ride of Barfüsserplatz, which is the square the city actually revolves around.
Day by day
Day 1 in Basel
The Münster, the terrace over the river, dinner on the far bank
Walk up into the old town for the Münster. The red sandstone church was begun in 1019, wrecked by the earthquake that flattened Basel in 1356 and finished around 1500, which is why it reads as Romanesque at the front and Gothic further in. Look at the Galluspforte on the west front before you go inside, and find Erasmus, who taught here and is buried in the north aisle.
Behind the church is the Pfalz, a raised terrace on the old city wall looking straight down at the Rhine and across at Germany. It is the best free view in the city and about thirty seconds from the nave.
The Museum der Kulturen is directly behind the cathedral, and its Oceania and Tibet collections are the ones people travel for. Then cross to Kleinbasel for dinner, on one of the little ferries that are pushed across the river by the current alone, with no engine.
- 13:00
Arrive at Basel SBB
TravelTrams from outside the station reach the old town in five minutes, or it is fifteen on foot, uphill at the end.
- 15:00
Basler Münster
ReligiousBegun 1019, rebuilt after the 1356 earthquake, finished about 1500. Erasmus is inside; the Galluspforte carvings are on the west front.
- 16:30
Museum der Kulturen
CultureEthnographic collections behind the cathedral, strongest on the South Seas, Tibet, Bali and ancient America. Closed Mondays.
- 19:30
Café Spitz
ArchitectureFish and a terrace on the water at the Kleinbasel end of the middle bridge. The outside menu is shorter and cheaper than the one indoors.
With more time: With more time, the toy museum on Barfüsserplatz holds a collection of teddy bears large enough to be genuinely strange, and it stays open on Mondays when the art museums do not.
Day 2 in Basel
The Beyeler at Riehen, then Tinguely's machines
Tram 6 runs out to Riehen, twenty minutes from the centre and almost at the German border, where Renzo Piano built a long low gallery in a park for the dealer Ernst Beyeler's private collection. It is one of the few museums in Europe where the building and the art are equal: Monet water lilies on a wall facing a lily pond, Rothkos in a room of their own, Giacometti figures out among the trees.
Come back in along the Rhine for the Tinguely, in a Mario Botta building by the water. Jean Tinguely made kinetic sculpture out of scrap and motors, most of it noisy and some of it self-destructive, and the museum lets you press the buttons. It is the least reverent art museum in Switzerland and the best one to take a bored teenager to.
Eat in Kleinbasel afterwards. The punk-run collective restaurant near Feldbergstrasse has been serving cheap, good, largely vegetarian food since long before that was fashionable.
- 10:00
Fondation Beyeler
CultureRenzo Piano in a park at Riehen: Monet, Rothko, Giacometti and strong temporary shows. Tram 6 to the end of the line.
- 14:00
Museum Jean Tinguely
CultureKinetic sculpture made of scrap and motors, in a Botta building on the water. Machines you start yourself, and loud.
- 19:00
Hirscheneck
EatCheap, hearty and left-wing, with vegetarian and vegan food always on. Sunday breakfast runs until late afternoon.
With more time: With more time, the Vitra campus is three tram stops over the German border and holds buildings by Gehry, Hadid, Ando and Herzog & de Meuron on one lawn.
Day 3 in Basel
The Kunstmuseum, and the Picassos the city bought
Leave the morning for the Kunstmuseum. Its core came to the city in 1661, which makes it the oldest public art collection in the world, and it runs from Holbein, who worked here, through to the twentieth century across two buildings joined under one ticket.
The Picassos are the ones to find. The city put their purchase to a public vote in 1967 and won it, and the artist responded by giving four more works to a town that had gone to that much trouble. They hang as a group, and the story is on the wall beside them.
The station is fifteen minutes' walk south, so an eleven o'clock start still leaves an easy train.
- 10:00
Kunstmuseum Basel
CultureHolbein, Böcklin, a room of Picasso and a strong twentieth-century floor, over two buildings on one ticket. Closed Mondays.
- 13:30
Train from Basel SBB
TravelAn hour to Zurich, under two to Bern, three to Paris on the direct TGV and about four and a half to Berlin.
With more time: With a later train, the contemporary art hall on Steinenberg changes its shows every few weeks and takes under an hour, and the zoo behind the station is the oldest in the country.
Before you go
Getting in and getting around
EuroAirport is four kilometres out and is shared by three countries, with separate exits into Switzerland and France, so take the Swiss one unless you mean to leave for Alsace. Zurich airport is ninety minutes away by train and often has better fares.
Trains arrive at Basel SBB, the main station on the Swiss side. Two other stations exist and matter: Basel Badischer Bahnhof, over the river, is German territory for railway purposes, and the French platforms sit inside SBB itself. Check which one your onward train leaves from the night before.
In the city, trams go everywhere and are frequent, and hotels give guests a mobility ticket that covers them for the whole stay. The old town is walkable but steep and cobbled in places.
The museums
Basel has around forty museums, which is absurd for its size, and three of them would be the best thing in most cities: the Kunstmuseum, the Fondation Beyeler and the Tinguely. Nearly all close on Mondays.
A single museum pass covers most of them and pays for itself on the second visit. If you are coming for the art specifically, avoid the week of the June art fair, when the hotels double their prices.
When to go
June to September for the river: the Rhine runs warm enough to swim, the ferries cross under sail-less cables, and the gravel bank on the Kleinbasel side fills up in the evening.
The other date worth planning around is Fasnacht, the carnival that starts at four in the morning on the Monday after Ash Wednesday, when the city turns off the street lights and thousands of costumed pipers and drummers march through the dark. Book a room months ahead.
Basel is the least obvious Swiss city to visit and the one people come back to. It has no lake, no mountain and no postcard, and instead it has Holbein, Picasso, Monet, Rothko and Tinguely inside a few tram stops, along with a river warm enough to swim home in.
It is also a border town in the useful sense: Alsace, the Black Forest and the rest of Switzerland all start here, so it works as either the first or the last stop on a longer trip.
Or make it a longer trip
These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- How many days do you need in Basel?
- Three, if you like art. The old town and the cathedral are half a day; the rest of the time goes on museums, and there are enough first-rate ones to fill a week. Two days is enough if you pick two museums and stick to them.
- Is Basel worth visiting compared with Zurich or Lucerne?
- It is a different proposition. Lucerne is scenery, Zurich is a big city with a lake, and Basel is the art town: for its size it has a collection nowhere else in the country can match, plus a border to cross for lunch. If museums bore you, go elsewhere.
- Can you really swim in the Rhine?
- Yes, from roughly June to September, and it is the local pastime. The trick is a waterproof bag that holds your clothes and doubles as a float, sold all over the city. Get in upstream, keep to the middle, and get out at one of the marked ladders before the port.
- Do the museums close on Mondays?
- Most of them, including the Kunstmuseum, the Beyeler and the Tinguely. If your trip includes a Monday, use it for the old town, the cathedral, the river and a tram ride into Germany or France, and save the art for the other days.