Basel Sightseeing Bus Tour with Audio Guide

Marktplatz and the red Town Hall

Marktplatz has been Basel's market square since the Middle Ages, and fresh produce stalls still fill it most mornings. It is dominated by the Town Hall, built in the early 16th century shortly after Basel joined the Swiss Confederation. Its facade is painted deep red, decorated with murals, a golden spire and a clock, and its inner courtyard is covered with painted scenes and a staircase lined with frescoes.

Your bus passes the square and the Gothic Fischmarkt fountain nearby, while the audio guide explains how Basel governed itself as a free city. If you want to come back and see the courtyard, it is usually open to visitors during office hours. Many people searching for things to do in Basel start right here, and seeing it first from the bus helps you plan a later walk.

The Rhine, the Middle Bridge and the St. Alban ferry

The Rhine divides Basel into Grossbasel on the left bank and Kleinbasel on the right. The Middle Bridge was first built in the 13th century and was for a long time the only crossing of the Rhine between Lake Constance and the sea; the stone bridge you see today dates from 1905. Its small chapel on the central pier is a copy of the medieval one.

Along the river you also see the small wooden ferries that cross without engines, pushed only by the current while hanging from a cable stretched across the water. The St. Alban ferry is one of them. In summer, locals swim down the Rhine with waterproof bags, and the riverside steps are full of people. The tour crosses the river to show you the Kleinbasel bank and the Wettstein quarter before returning to the old town.

The Three Countries Corner and St. Johann

In the Rhine port at Kleinhüningen, a silver pylon on the tip of a quay marks the Dreiländereck, the Three Countries Corner, where Switzerland, France and Germany meet in the middle of the river. The bus stops here for about ten minutes, enough to walk to the tip, look across to the French and German banks and take photos of the port and its cranes. Basel's Rhine port is Switzerland's link to the North Sea.

On the way you pass the St. Johanns-Tor, a 14th-century gate tower by the river, and stop for about seven minutes at St. Johanns-Park with its view over the water. The route also passes the site of a Celtic settlement near the old gasworks, one of the oldest traces of life in Basel, and a modern pharmaceutical campus with buildings by well-known architects.

Basel Minster, Kunstmuseum and the St. Alban quarter

Basel Minster, built of red sandstone with a colourful glazed-tile roof and two slender towers, stands on a terrace high above the Rhine. It is a mix of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, rebuilt after the great earthquake of 1356, and its Pfalz terrace offers one of the best views in the city. Nearby, the Kunstmuseum Basel holds what is often described as the oldest public art collection in the world.

The bus continues to the St. Alban quarter, where a section of the old city wall still stands and medieval mills line the St. Alban canal; one of them houses the Paper Mill museum, where paper is still made by hand. The audio guide explains how the paper and printing trades made Basel a centre of learning, along with its university, founded in 1460 and the oldest in Switzerland.

Läckerli tasting and the city's sweet tradition

Läckerli is Basel's signature biscuit: a hard, spiced honey biscuit with almonds, candied orange and lemon peel, cut into small rectangles and topped with a thin sugar glaze. Bakers in Basel have made it for centuries, and it is the souvenir almost every visitor carries away in a tin. During the tour you get a traditional Läckerli to taste on board.

It is a small detail, but it says a lot about the city, which grew rich on trade along the Rhine and kept its own traditions, such as the famous Carnival, the Fasnacht. The fountain opposite the starting point, a playful group of moving metal sculptures in a pool, is known as the Carnival Fountain and is one of the most photographed spots in central Basel.