Basel

Basel: history & character

Basel, founded as the Roman camp Basilia in the 1st century and later a medieval episcopal town, joined the Swiss Confederation in 1501 as the eleventh canton — and became a capital of European humanism with its university (1460), Erasmus and Holbein. Today Switzerland's third city (180,000 residents; 830,000 in the tri-border France-Germany-Switzerland metropolitan area), Basel combines Swiss orderliness with a relaxed Rhine culture: from June to September locals swim in the river floating with their belongings in waterproof Wickelfisch bags, cross from bank to bank on silent cable-driven ferries, and lunch on terraces where dogs are brought a Wassernapf without asking. With 40 museums (the Kunstmuseum, the oldest public art museum in the world; the Fondation Beyeler; the Tinguely), Art Basel every June and architecture signed by Herzog & de Meuron, Mario Botta and Renzo Piano, Basel claims the title of Switzerland's cultural capital. For dogs: Switzerland is part of the EU pet-passport system, two official Hundebadi swim spots line the Rhine, and the canton enforces leash laws strictly in city parks — but the floodplain forests along the Wiese offer kilometres of off-leash freedom.