Toy Worlds Museum Basel — Attraction in Basel

Delightful museum with a few very kind and friendly staff.

Four floors, with SO much to see on each, with many intricate miniatures and doll’s houses mainly from the 1800s onwards. A great variety of dolls and plush teddy bears too, carefully and imaginatively arranged in large glass cases. More curious esoteric models on Floor 1, including a torture chamber…!

For smaller folk there are fairly large play areas of Duplo, a very generous amount of Lego and Lego Technic on Floor 3.

Tickets come with a free interactive tablet guide with strap to make it easier to carry. Visitors scan a QR code at various points and an entertaining VR animation appears with historical info on the piece, likely to be of interest to slightly older children.

An overall thoughtfully presented museum. Benches dotted around each section, and the environment is very clean.

Could have spent more than the two hours I had there quite easily.

Note: The main shop at entrance is very small, and only sells a handful of miniatures. Plushes are also very modern, and not reminiscent of the styles in the museum. Second section tucked away had a minimum spend of 10 CHF (if I recall correctly) when paying by card, so remember to bring cash for postcards and...

The entrance to the Toy Museum is inconspicuous, just a small door next to the street, like countless other doors on the street. But once you walk through this door, the world inside is completely different. There are thousands of teddy bears here, all kinds of styles and sizes you can think of can be found here, some of which are from hundreds of years ago, which means that these teddy bears have been with several generations. In addition to teddy bears, the toys in the museum are also divided into many categories according to different themes, and there are miniature models of various industries that look very vivid and interesting, such as pharmacists, carpenters, violin makers, tailors, etc.

If you need guidance, you can get a tablet at the front desk, which has video and audio playback functions, which can guide you and provide you with a lot of information.

If you are a tourist, you can enjoy a 50% discount here with a Basel card. The museum has four floors and the tour time can be 40...

I find this museum a little odd. I’m not sure who the target audience is meant to be. I went there with my 2 year old and a friend with a 3 year old and the children were clearly not so welcome. There is a very tempting gift area as you enter the museum with loads of breakable things on the floor and on low shelves. It’s not an area easily avoidable and so naturally the toddlers wanted to go and see. And were hissed at and harshly spoken to by staff if they even went near something. Hardly a warm welcome. I actually got quite upset at the end as my son wasn’t touching anything but the woman working there was clearly just wanting us to leave.

The museum was full of adults when we went and fortunately everything is behind glass but we got a lot of stern glances as our toddlers wanted to press buttons and let off some steam.

If you like old teddy bears and slightly creepy and dusty dolls houses and don’t have kids with you,...