Things to Do in Basel, Switzerland: Walking Guide

The best things to do in Basel combine a nearly thousand-year-old cathedral, historic churches, remarkable museums, contemporary art and the Rhine. Compact and rich in culture, the city is an excellent place to explore on foot, from Grossbasel’s old streets to the riverside views of Kleinbasel. Neywo also offers a free audio guide for Basel with 176 narrated places.

What to see in Basel

Basel Minster

Basel Minster is one of the city’s defining landmarks. Built in red sandstone, the cathedral combines Romanesque and Gothic styles, with the present structure taking shape between 1019 and 1500. Its two slender towers dominate the skyline: Georgsturm was completed in 1429, while Martinsturm followed in 1500.

The cathedral was originally Roman Catholic before becoming a Reformed Protestant church during the Reformation. Its earlier Romanesque structure was destroyed in the Basel earthquake of 1356. The history of the site reaches further back, to a ninth-century cathedral built by Bishop Haito and a church consecrated in 1019 in the presence of Emperor Henry II.

Basel Historical Museum

Inside the former Barfüsserkirche, the Basel Historical Museum presents the cultural history of the Upper Rhine region. The church began as a 13th-century Franciscan foundation before being secularized in 1529. It later served as a hospital, school and warehouse, becoming a museum in 1894.

The exhibitions cover everyday life, craftsmanship and artistic achievement from the Middle Ages through the Baroque period. The collection’s origins lie in the Amerbach family’s Chamber of Wonders, acquired by the city in 1661. With more than 6,200 square meters of exhibition space, it is one of Switzerland’s largest and most important cultural history museums.

Haus zum Kirschgarten

Haus zum Kirschgarten, or the House in the Cherry Garden, offers a detailed look at bourgeois life in Basel during the 18th and 19th centuries. The elegant city palace was built between 1775 and 1780 for Johann Rudolf Burckhardt, a silk ribbon manufacturer and army colonel. Architect Johann Ulrich Büchel designed it in an early Neoclassical style, with subtle Masonic influences.

Today, fifty rooms recreate the interiors of affluent Basel households. Drawing rooms and bedrooms contain period furniture, porcelain, toys and paintings. The building is one of the three main branches of the Basel Historical Museum.

Basel Music Museum

The Basel Historical Museum – Musikmuseum occupies former prison cells in the Lohnhof, a complex with more than eight centuries of history. The site began as an Augustinian monastery in 1206 and later became a municipal builder’s yard. In 1835, it was converted into a city prison, a role it retained for 160 years.

The museum houses Switzerland’s largest collection of musical instruments: more than 3,300 instruments, with about 650 displayed across three floors. Highlights include a virginal from 1572, a bass viola da gamba by Joachim Tielke and the Ab Yberg organ. Multimedia presentations allow visitors to hear many of the instruments.

Kunstmuseum Basel

Kunstmuseum Basel is home to the oldest public art collection in the world. Its story began in 1661, when Basel and its university acquired the Amerbach Cabinet, including works by Hans Holbein. The collection now ranges from the early fifteenth century to contemporary art.

The museum is particularly strong in Upper Rhine art from 1400 to 1600 and European art from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Works by Renaissance artists, Rembrandt, Rubens, Manet, Monet, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Picasso, Klee, Chagall and Warhol form part of its broad collection. The museum also holds the world’s most extensive collection of works by the Holbein family.

Basel Museum of Ancient Art and Ludwig Collection

The Basel Museum of Ancient Art and Ludwig Collection is Switzerland’s only museum dedicated entirely to the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean. Its collection spans from 4000 BC to 400 AD, with objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, Italy, the Near East and Cyprus.

The museum occupies two early nineteenth-century buildings designed by Melchior Berri. Its Greek vases and Egyptian objects are among the highlights. Nearby, the Sculpture Hall contains more than 2,200 plaster casts of ancient sculptures, ranging from the Archaic period to Late Roman times.

Kunsthalle Basel

Kunsthalle Basel has been one of the key institutions in the city’s contemporary art scene since 1872. Located beside the city theatre and opposite Stadtcasino, it was created through the merger of the Basel Society of Artists and the Basler Kunstverein Art Association.

The building was designed by Johann Jakob Stehlin-Burckhardt, with artistic contributions from Arnold Böcklin and Ernst Stückelberg. Its exhibition history includes the 1949 Impressionist Exhibition, which brought Monet’s Water Lilies outside France for the first time, and The New American Painting in 1958.

Museum Tinguely

On the Rhine in Solitude Park, Museum Tinguely celebrates the kinetic work of Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely. Designed by Mario Botta, the museum opened in 1996 and contains the world’s largest collection of Tinguely’s work.

Tinguely’s sculptures move, clatter and sometimes destroy themselves, challenging the idea that sculpture should remain static. The collection spans four decades, from early reliefs to monumental mechanical works from the 1980s. A glass wall also looks into an open workshop where specialists restore the kinetic pieces.

Museum of Contemporary Art

The Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1980 as the first public museum in Europe built exclusively for contemporary art. Its collection focuses on work from the 1960s to the present, including painting, sculpture and video art.

Part of the building began as a nineteenth-century paper mill. The Christoph Merian Stiftung funded its conversion in the late 1970s, while Basel architects Steib and Steib added a modern wing. The result brings industrial heritage together with contemporary design, with artists such as Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman, Rosemarie Trockel and Jeff Wall represented in the collection.

Natural History Museum of Basel

The Natural History Museum of Basel, or Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, has occupied its building on Augustinergasse since 1849. Its collections cover zoology, entomology, mineralogy, anthropology, osteology and paleontology, holding millions of objects that document life on Earth.

Two unusual specimens are especially notable: the mummy of Anna Catharina Bischoff, discovered during excavations at the Barfüsserkirche in 1975, and Theo the Pipe Smoker, whose skeleton was found near the Theodorskirche in Kleinbasel in 1984.

Helvetia on a Journey

At the Kleinbasel end of the Middle Bridge, a bronze figure sits on the railing looking down the Rhine. Helvetia on a Journey represents Switzerland’s female personification, familiar from the two-franc coin, but here she appears to have stepped away from her usual heroic pose.

Bernese sculptor Bettina Eichin imagined Helvetia leaving the coin behind and travelling through Switzerland. In Basel, she sets down her spear, shield and suitcase, hangs her coat on the railing and rests beside the river.

Strassburger Monument

The Strassburger Monument stands in Elisabethenanlage, opposite Basel’s main railway station. Erected in 1895, the marble and bronze sculpture commemorates Switzerland’s humanitarian response during the Franco-Prussian War.

When Strasbourg was under siege in 1870, Basel, Bern and Zurich negotiated with the Baden government to evacuate 1,400 women, children and elderly residents to safety in Switzerland. The central sculpture shows an angel protecting a woman and child. The monument was funded by the French baron Hervé de Gruyer as an expression of gratitude from the people of Strasbourg.

St. Jakob-Park

St. Jakob-Park, known locally as Joggeli, is the largest football stadium in Switzerland and the home of FC Basel. Designed by Basel architects Herzog and de Meuron, it opened on March 15, 2001. The stadium takes its name from the former village of St. Jakob an der Birs.

Joggeli hosted six matches during the 2008 European Championship and the 2015–2016 Europa League final. Its modern design has also led to comparisons with Munich’s Allianz Arena.

Vischer’s Garden

Vischer’s Garden, or Vischerscher Garten, is a private garden and is not open to the public. Its greenery can nevertheless be glimpsed from the street, offering a small reminder of Basel’s hidden gardens and enclosed spaces.

Explore Basel with a free audio guide

Neywo’s Basel audio guide includes six walking tours, one bus route and one bike route, covering 176 narrated places in total. The walks range from 1.54 to 3.19 km and take between 81 and 98 minutes, with 10 or 12 narrated stops each. The bus route covers 5.1 km in 22 minutes and has 8 stops, while the bike route covers 3.6 km in 18 minutes and also has 8 stops.

Choose a route such as From the Minster to the Middle Bridge, Barefoot Monks, Dolls and Silk Palaces, or Holbein to Paper: The Museum Mile. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.

Download Neywo and explore Basel independently, then continue discovering Switzerland or compare Basel with other Swiss cities such as Bern, Geneva and Lucerne.