24 Hours In Basel

Now I know what you’re thinking… why did I choose Basel to visit? And why only for 24 hours? Maybe you’ve never heard of it before? Maybe you have but don’t know much about it? Well, all in all, the flights were cheap, and I’m always up for discovering a place I know nothing about since my travel buddies, Erin and Lily, visited Eindhoven last Spring.

I’m a sucker for a deal (what can I say… I’m Northern) but unfortunately, due to a work commitment, my time in Basel was cut short to just 24 hours; nevertheless, we made the most of our time together there, and had a blast. It’s fair to say that my knowledge of Switzerland is limited (except finding out you can bring more alcohol into the country than if you were flying to the EU – knowledge!) but what I did know is that it was meant to be expensive; however, I didn’t find the prices to be too extortionate.

Lily and I flew from Manchester after work on Friday and Erin flew in the afternoon from Gatwick, and was a seasoned local by the time we met her. Once we got to the airport (Basel Mulhouse Frieberg) it became apparent that we were in the middle of three countries – France, Germany and Switzerland, and if you want some airport #facts, you technically land in France and walk through the exit to your chosen country – so without further ado, we headed for Switzerland!

We jumped on the number 50 bus, which cost us about £3 each and took the 20-minute journey into the centre. Erin met us at the bus stop and we jumped on the tram to our hotel, which was only about 5 minutes away. We opted for a triple room at the Ibis Budget, as the hotel prices were a bit all over the place. The great thing was, it was only about a 15 walk into the centre or 1 stop on the tram. There wasn’t anything around our hotel, so we dropped our bags and headed straight out.

We were all a bit peckish and went to Tibits for a bit of a change. Apparently it is a London-based chain vegetarian restaurant, where you load your plate up and it gets weighed for the final price. The choice was great and we all had a mixture, costing us around £8-12 each, so not crazy. Afterwards, we had a wander down the main shopping street, which was full of people drinking and eating outside the bars and a lot of signs for mulled wine. We decided to head back to Zum Kiss, which we’d walked past on the way in as it was a little quieter, but still had a great atmosphere.

The bar was really cool inside, with an extensive selection of gins, wines and beers. We decided to split a bottle of white between the three of us, which came to around £10.50 each. Once we’d put the world to rites we started to make out way back to the hotel but opted to walk this time as it wasn’t very cold. We headed to bed in order to get up and enjoy the next day together!

We’d researched where to go for breakfast on day 2, and found a local cafe called Radius 39, which came highly recommended online as all of the ingredients came from a 39-mile radius – how apt! It was a little further out than we were staying so we used the tram system again, which was super easy and managed to find a kids playground, which we took full advantage of on the way. The place reminded me of Whole Foods as it had fresh fruit, veg and other produce out on display. We all had a latte and bacon and scrambled eggs, which was delicious.

We decided to walk back into town which took us about 20 minutes but was a lovely walk through the back streets. We came across a very festive looking road which had one of the three bridges that still remained from when the city was walled. We went in a few shops along the way, including an art gallery and design one, which was great. It’s also worth mentioning that the city has a lot of galleries as it is a popular place to study art.

We carried on wandering and headed to the Basel Minster, which was on the banks of the River Rhine. We headed to the viewing point and took in the beauty of the city from up high. After all the walking, we had built up quite an appetite and decided to head for fondue, which I have to admit, was a real highlight of the trip!

We found a couple of places by Googling, but the one we went to didn’t seem like much from the outside, but was lovely and cosy when we got in. We all ordered mulled wine (when in Rome) and shared a fondue for two people between three (side note – we could have easily split one between three of us!) It came with a basket of bread and sliced new potatoes and was glorious! It was a little bit more pricey than I was expecting (It cost us around £20 each for the drink and fondue which was the cheapest one we found) but I would highly recommend doing a fondue if you are visiting Switzerland – it is the home of it after all!

The funny thing about Basel is that is really is a mixture of French and German. A lot of the streets were German-inspired, but the architecture definitely reminded me of France. The menus at different places were usually in German, but then we also overheard people speaking French – a very multi-cultural city!

Basel isn’t somewhere I would necessarily rush back to, but it was my first real time in Switzerland (after arriving at Geneva airport last March) and it was a lovely place to spend 24 hours. We managed to fit quite a lot into the time we had together and it was fun to go away with my girls again! It was easy to get around and not as expensive as people had made it out to be, and with a flight time of only 1 hour 15 minutes, it’s the perfect place to spend a weekend. My 24 hours in Basel were filled with wine, cheese and friends, and what more could a girl ask for?

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