Excursions - Basel (Basel Region)

Trained elephants and sea lions give amazing performances. But the Zoo in Basel became famous on account of its gorillas and rhinoceroses and its many successes in animal breeding.

Basel is the home of Switzerland's largest ethnological and folk art collections. The museum is particularly rich in exhibits from the South Seas and from Indonesia.

The Basel Museum of Ancient Art is the only Swiss museum devoted exclusively to Classical Antiquity. It contains Greek, Etruscan and Roman works, predominantly from the period 1000 B.C.

A tour of the Natural History Museum is like an expedition into the remotest corners of our planet where the most beautiful minerals originate, or into the distant past when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Natural objects - the largest as well as the smallest - are there to be discovered, inspected and contemplated. A memorable experience.

The emphasis of the "Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel" is on Upper Rheinish and Flemish paintings and drawing from 1400 to 1600 and on 19th and 20th century art.

Museum Tinguely Basel is dedicated to the life and work of Jean Tingley, the most important Swiss iron scuptor (1925-1991).

The Spalen Gate is the most imposing of the three surviving city gates that formed part of the fortifications in the 1400s. Many important supply goods for the city, coming from the Alsace region, passed through this gate.

The Barfüsserkirche (church of the barefoot friars) is a combination of church and museum. The former monastery church is now a museum of history. Here you can admire the magnificent treasure of Basel cathedral and gain a valuable insight into the city's history.

The Schaulager - built by the world famous architects Herzog & de Meuron - is a new venue for art and neither a museum nor a traditional warehouse. It is home to the works from the collection of the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation that are not exhibited in museums.

The Museum for Contemporary Art presents works of the Art Museum Basel and the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation. It shows art of the 1960s up to the present in changing exhibitions.