Leanne and I had a nice sleep in, we met for a late breakfast at 9am.  

A day to explore Basel and Leanne asked if we could specially find her a nice watch, because she wanted something for her recent special birthday.

Hotel Basel is where everything is, walking distance, in the old town, so we only had to walk out the door and we were amongst the action.   The city was waking up, with a fresh produce market in the square where the city hall is with it's particularly eye-catching red façade, the characteristic tower and playful frescoes.    The flowers in the market are so bright and cheerful and the deli type goods look fresh and tasty.

We walk on to see the Romanesque iinterior and Gothic exterior style 12th to 15th century landmark of Basel, the Cathedral.   We walk through the church to find the garden with observation platform that we enjoyed a spectacular view overlooking the Rhine we are shortly going to be travelling on.

Walking more streets to window shop for watches we end up stopping at Mr Pickwicks Pub for a cold drink.

Our next stop is at the Spielzeug Welten Museum, the world's largest collection of teddy bears, dolls, dolls houses and true to scale miniatures. Most of the exhibits date from the late 19th century to the early 20th centuries. The dolls houses and miniature shops are meticulously decorated and furnished. We've never seen so many toys!  

We finally fiind Leanne her watch, she'd narrowed it down to Tissot brand, but then the choice was hard to choose from, we found two in a window - that she liked and out of the two she choose the one on sale, half price, a bargain. It's exactly what she was looking for - a white face, big numbers and medium size silver watch with just a touch of bling.   Noice Leanne! And we love the fact it was on sale.

I asked Leanne if we could stop for lunch, as it was getting later in the day. We had a really nice lunch in a big old building, there was outside café dining but you are not going to believe this, it is darn hot over here, like 29 degrees and tomorrow it's supposed to be 30 degrees! Oh dear, I haven't got any short sleeves!!

The sun is out, which is great, but the temperature is definitely not what we expected, it's like back at home.

Leanne wanted to stop at a tea shop just near our hotel then we had a afternoon break, for an early dinner 7pm.  

It was a nice day, got in a bit of sightseeing and some shopping. Basel is not like the tourist towns I have been visiting, it's a busy working city with a bit of added tourism, its focus is around Switzerland's only port, and is a major centre of commence and industry, specializing in pharmaceuticals. It does have over 40 museums though, and some of them are the weirdest museums, so I'd say there is something for everyone.

Tomorrow we have another day in Basel finishing the day on board our Viking Cruise Boat, the Viking Tor.