The Basel region - combining cantons Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft and boasting 450′000 inhabitants - is one of the four Swiss host cities for UEFA EURO 2008™, alongside Berne, Zurich and Geneva. It will also have the honour of staging the opening game. Governing councillors Christoph Eymann (Basel-Town) and Urs Wüthrich-Pelloli (Basel-Country) have extended a warm greeting to all, exclusively on euro2008.com.
We are very proud to be the main UEFA EURO 2008™ venue in Switzerland and are delighted to play host to the numerous visitors from within Switzerland and abroad. It is our goal that all football fans who come to Basel will return home with a positive impression of the time they spent here, whether or not they have witnessed the sporting success of their team at the St. Jakob-Park Stadium.

To host the third-largest sporting event in the world and the largest ever to have taken place in Switzerland is a great honour but also a big challenge at the same time. All those involved in the organisation have long been excited about the preparation which is at an advanced stage; specialist teams have been set up step-by-step in all relevant sectors, financial decisions have been taken and co-operations have been established on different levels. For the remaining 500 days we are very much committed to pushing ahead with preparation and helping to make UEFA EURO 2008™ an unforgettable event.
Following the fantastic FIFA World Cup with our neighbours and friends in Germany, and given that the region of Basel has the most passionate fans in Switzerland, the anticipation is already very apparent. The people in Basel are looking forward to celebrating a great football party.

Basel is proud of its cultural facilities and its places of interest. But it is also proud of the many other leisure facilities in and around Basel.

The choice of leisure facilities available in Basel is much greater than in other town of similar size. This is true not only because of its above-average cultural range, its many high-class museums such as its Kunstmuseum (Museum of Fine Arts), the Beyeler Foundation, or the Antikenmuseum (Museum of Antiquities). Besides culture, Basel also offers many other possibilities for amusing oneself: at sports, walking through the old town, or a stroll to the shops in the inner city.
A lot of recreational spaces
The Basel region also offers many opportunities for enjoying one’s leisure hours. There are many of these, in the parks, the green-belt areas around the city, its rivers, and the nearby recreational areas in the adjacent more rural half-canton, in the Black Forest, and in Alsace. A congenial picnic where the Birs joins the Rhine, a sylvan grill evening in one of the nearby woodlands, a visit to the Botanical Gardens or the zoo one of the citys famous landmarks provide a wide and varied choice.
Excursions on land or water
Passenger ships on the Rhine run regular excursions throughout the year. Or one can stroll through the town to see works by famous contemporary architects: Gehry, Botta, Diener & Diener, Herzog & de Meuron the last two have their offices in Basel , and Hotz. They all have set new accents in Basel in recent years.
Culinary highlights within the region where three countries meet
But Basel and its environs also offer a fantastic gastronomic choice to let one enjoy one’s leisure hours to the full, from obscure little bistros to the internationally famous gourmet temple Stucki and a vast range of eating places in the Alsace and the Black Forest just across the Rhine. There is something for every taste and every pocket. The culinary world has indeed arrived in Basel: there is hardly a country whose cuisine does not offer food lovingly made, nor, for that matter, are there many fast-food chains that have not yet set up shop at the Rhine knee.

It is the number and variety of its nearly forty museums and a dozen theatres - foremost among these the Theater Basel - cinemas, concert halls, Switzerlands most modern musical theatre, and various open-air concerts, that account for Basel’s special charm as a city of culture.

Museums, a public success
Basel is known for its museums, rich in tradition, not only because of its Kunstmuseum (Museum of Fine Arts), the world’s oldest art collection accessible to the public. Basel now has several well-known museums, most of them famous well beyond cantonal and national borders, such as the Beyeler Foundation, the Antikenmuseum (Museum of Antiquities), the Historische Museum (History Museum), and the Museum der Kulturen (Museum of Cultures).
Theatre as a threefold stage
It is not only the Theater Basel, chosen in 1999 as the best stage for German-language performances, which ensures a rich cultural life. It is run as a threefold stage, with some thirty operatic, drama, and ballet productions a year.
Music from classics to modern
Basel is a city rich in music and offers a wide choice. Classical concerts will be given in churches and the Stadtcasino. Besides high-class local orchestras and chamber groups among them the Basel Symphony Orchestra and the Basel Sinfonietta international orchestras and soloists also regularly perform there.
For lovers of rock and pop music there are several smaller halls in the inner city, the former military barracks in Kleinbasel (Lesser Basel), and the so-called Konzertfabrik Z7 (Z7 Concert Factory) in nearby Pratteln.
Basel’s Musical Theater, one of Europe’s most modern stages, also offers regular events. And among the region’s many small theatres there is also a special English-language stage, under the aegis of the English Seminary that occupies a medieval building near the university.
Films with original soundtrack
A specialty of cinemas in Switzerland as particularly of Basel is to show foreign films with their original soundtracks, without dubbing in German, but with subtitles.