Death March to Tinguely Museum

I had a terrible day yesterday. Without going into the gory details, which would just lead into a lengthy rant about the Swiss and air conditioning, suffice it to say that there was a whole lot of pooping in pants, by BOTH children (no, I'm not joking), humidity, sweaty tram rides, damp laundry draped about, and fights where kids were touching each other. At the end of the day, I would have paid someone a million dollars to just take me home.

At the end of that terrible day, I said to Jim "Maybe tomorrow will be better." Apparently, the travel gods heard me and decided to strike me down.

The plan was beautifully simple. Everyone has raved about the Tinguely Museum. It has a lot of kinetic sculptures built by Basler Jean Tinguely, and many interactive exhibits. Although we were told it was great for a rainy day, a brilliant thought suddenly occurred to me. Air condition is banned in Basel, but cars, some trams and some buses still have it, so clearly there are exceptions. And everyone knows that museums are temperature controlled, right? Aha, I gloated to myself, let's visit the Tinguely tomorrow when we know it will be hot and we can stroll leisurely around in the cool air conditioning. Best of all, it will be FREE because the children are under 16 and I have a Swiss Pass!

I believed I had been to the Tinguely before -- at least, to the outside. There was a pool with lots of kinetic water sculptures in it next to a big building that I believed was the museum. I checked the website quickly but didn't really understand the directions -- they mentioned a bus, but I clearly recalled walking there the last time. So, the kids and I set off at about 10 am and got on the No.6 tram to Barfusserplatz, planning to hop onto a No.3 tram, which I believed would stop at the museum.

We got on the No.3 and within about 30 seconds passed the place I thought was the museum, so we hopped off at the next stop and walked about 5 blocks back to where the museum was. We stood for a while in the shade and admired the sculptures.




After about ten minutes, I started to lead the kids toward the entrance of the large building behind the pool and noticed a giant sign announcing "Theatre Basel." Yes, sadly, the scuplture pond was done by Tinguely for the theater and had nothing to do with the actual museum.

No problem, I thought. Basel is a relatively small town and almost everything is within walking distance. I vaguely remembered the the museum was near the Wettsteinbrucke (a bridge across the Rhine), so we hopped back on the No.3 and went ahead for a few more stops. Unfortunately, I could see we were heading away from the river, so we hopped off again and worked our way through alleys and back streets towards large bridge. Sure enough, as we approached the road to the bridge, there was a sign for the Tinguely Museum directing us straight ahead.

By this time, we were all getting hot from walking for about 20 minutes in the heat. The kids were already whining about when we could get a drink, and I promised we would get a cold drink at the museum as soon as we arrived. We walked about 4 blocks and saw... the bridge. No sign of a museum, nothing. I was confident the bridge was in Gross Basel and the bridge was leading us to Klein Basel (where our apartment is). I figured we would cross the bridge and see what the signage said on the other side. If there was something pointing us to the museum, we'd follow that, otherwise, we'd just head home.

It was nice and cool on the bridge, so that part of the walk was good. When we got to the other side of the river, there was a sign for the museum directing us to walk down the stairs to the path next to the river. We all rejoiced "Yay! We're at the museum!" By this time, we'd been walking for about 45 minutes -- that's a long time for two kids.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs, there was a sculptural playground. "This must be the museum playground!" said Lily. "Let's hurry up and go to the museum for our cool drink," I said (because I wanted to get in the AC as soon as possible). We wandered around the area for 10 minutes and saw nothing remotely resembling a museum. Then I glimpsed a small sign directing us toward the museum along a path by the Rhine.

"It's over here!" I said and we started down the path. We walked, and walked, and walked, and walked. My shirt front was soaked with sweat and even the kids were sweating. Periodically, we would pass a sign that directed us to the museum. We passed the hospital where Jack got his medical care, which I must note is about 5 blocks from our apartment. We kept going. "Is DIS the museum?" Jack asked every time we approached a new building. The answer was always no. After about 30 minutes of trudging, we came to a river boat landing that said "Tinguely Museum." "We're here!" I said. We looked around for a few minutes and found nothing but apartment buildings. "Let's walk up ahead," I said. "Is DIS the museum?" asked Jack. "Not yet," I said.

We trudged another 10 minutes and came to something called the Solitude Park. The river path ended abruptly. There was no sign suggesting where the museum might be, and the only buildings in sight were a preschool and Roche. "I'm really dizzy," said Jack. "I know," I said, "Let's see if we can find some place to get a drink." We walked across the park (the kids paused to go down a slide) and came out on the street, which turned out to be a four lane highway. There was nothing that looked like a museum or a place to get a drink. I saw a Roche security guard standing at the gate to the building and went over to him. I asked him in German where the museum was. "You go through the park," he said, pointing in the direction we came from. "Is DIS the museum?" Jack said. "No!" I said, "We have to go through the park."

We walked across the Solitude Park and came to a building -- a preschool. We walked a bit further and came to a middle school. We walked through some trees and finally Lily spotted a kinetic sculpture. "It's over here!"

When we got inside, it was mercifully air conditioned as I hoped. I showed my Swiss Pass when we approached the ticket counter and we were admitted for free. "Let's just go down to the restaurant and get something to eat." $52.30 Francs later (no, I'm not kidding), the kids having eaten a hotdog and fries and me having eaten quiche, we were ready to see the exhibit. The kids were really excited. I was just happy for the air conditioning.

We saw this:

and a few other non-moving exhibits of a similar nature. "Dis place is COOL," said Jack. Then we went up to the next floor and entered a room featuring a series of kinetic sculptures that you operated by stepping on a switch near the exhibit. The room was lit so that giant shadows of each sculpture were cast on the walls.

"Dis is a little SCARY," said Jack:




"I want to go to another museum!" said Jack when the last sculpture (shown above) began to whirl around. We headed downstairs to the next exhibit, which was a series of elaborate sets of armor and equally elaborate dresses.

"I don't like DOSE guys" said Jack, referring to the armor posed as if it were riding horses (above).
"DAT is SCARY!" said Jack when he noticed the mural of skeletons that went along the entire length of one wall.

"What DOSE guys doing, Mama?" he asked fearfully when we saw the group of armed men. "They have spears," I said. "I don't LIKE them. What is a SPEAR?" "A pointy stick," I said. "I want to go in another kind of museum," said Jack fearfully.



"I think these dresses are GORGEOUS!" said Lily and she asked me to take several pictures.

We both liked the red one.
Lily posed in front of a few.
Jack just kept asking when we were going to go to another kind of museum, so pretty soon we went to the bottom floor. The first two rooms had several sculptures that made noise. One of them was made out of a lot of drums. Jack screamed and ran when Lily started it up, so there was no time for me to take any pictures. We raced through the two rooms and ended up at the last room, where they had a series of sculptures set up that featured what looked like carnival lights.

Jack jumped about 3 feet and grabbed my hand when Lily made this giant hand move.

He kept a wide margin between himself and this horse sculpture. Lily wanted to climb up it and watch from inside while it moved. I knew Jack wasn't going to touch it with a 10 foot pole so I said no.

Jack's final comment: "I don't even KNOW what kind of fing DAT is," pointing to the scultpure above, that was hanging from the ceiling. "Can we go to a different kind of museum now?"