I had decided that Wednesday would be a museum day with plans to hit a few before the day was over. Basel supposedly has over 37 museums, but I have to say that they play pretty fast and loose with the term Museum. One is apparently considered the smallest museum in the city and is simply a window that you look into!! But my choices for today were great museums.
The walk was made enjoyable by checking out these few signs…..
And there is no question what resides behind these doors…..
Speaking of toilets, I passed a small street festival that had a toilet block that was hooked into the sewer system in an interesting way…..
I sure hope that no one accidentally bumps into it!!!
This “window” was painted onto the house wall to look just like one of the other windows….
And this little lady waiting for the tram caught my eye…..
The first museum stop was the Spielzeug Welten Museum, better known as the Toy Museum. It is comprised of four floors and you started at the top and worked your way to the bottom. The top floor was TEDDY BEARS……
…..thousands of Teddy Bears!!! My daughter, Jenny, would have loved this floor!! They were set in cute arrangements, including tea time, bedtime, a Teddy Bear Hospital, Teddy Bear Picnic and more….
I read later that there were 2,500 teddy bears and another 4,000 toys and dolls!!! There was an interactive screen where you could enter the bear’s number and find out it’s history…..
After fully exploring the bear floor, I moseyed down to the third floor where the corsets were displayed…..that’s right….corsets!!! Apparently it is a special exhibition but seemed a bit out of character!! The corsets were beautiful and ranged from modern…..
…..to historical…..
…and even some that were for “art” purposes rather than wearing…..
The other floors were filled with dolls in various vignettes and honestly, I grew tired of them fairly quickly. I could only think that my Mom would have spent DAYS and DAYS in here looking at each scene and cooing over how wonderful it was, while my Dad and I begged her to leave!!!
I will say that the detail in some of these is AMAZING!!!!
This one seemed a bit bizarre to me as the carnival ride looked quite evil…..
I did find one scene with a fabric store……
….but, alas, not a quilt in sight!!! When I hit the rows and rows of doll houses…..
…..it was time for me to leave!!!
The next stop was Basler Papiermühle, better known as the Basel Paper Mill. The really cool thing about this museum is that it was fully interactive. In each of the areas…. paper making, printing and binding….. there were artisans actually working at the craft, producing fine, hand crafted products.
The first stage was paper making. I first watched the professionals at work….
….and then got to learn about the process myself!!! They currently use two different methods of preparing the fibers for making the paper. The oldest method uses large hammers to beat the fabrics into pulp…..
Unfortunately, there is a cog currently broken so this particular machine was not in operation. The newer machine uses large shredders to masticate the materials into a pulp…..
As you can see, paper making is quite a messy business….
It was explained that the nicer paper is made from actual fabric but the everyday paper is made from wood pulp.
Then it was my turn to make a piece of paper, complete with watermark!! The vat was filled with water and a mixture of wood pulp (Pine and Eucalyptus)…..
Th mold on the right is made up of two copper screens with the finer one on top. The watermark design is made from copper wire. The steps are as follows……
Dip the mold straight down into the water 
Lift it out squarely and shake some of the water off 
Tilt the mold to let more water drain off (patience is required) 
“Roll” the mold onto absorbent paper to release the paper that you have just made.
After a few minutes the paper could be released from the absorbent fabric (It was amazingly strong)…..
It would normally hang for 48 hours to dry, but they used a heated press to dry the paper quickly so that we could take it with us. Here is my first ever paper…..
In the next room they talked about the process of turning fabric into pulp for the paper. In the early days the fabrics were put into a well that was partially filled with water. After several days, mold begins to grow on the fabric, but it is still tightly woven and cannot be torn easily. By the 8th day, there are actual mushrooms growing on it but the fibers have broken down so that they can be easily mulched. Apparently this process is a VERY stinky one and the “rotting cellar” was placed a fair distance from the rest of the work.
The next floor up had information about the history of writing and they had a station where you could try different inks, and using different types of pens….quills and bamboo tubes, etc. Once the note was written, you could pick a marbled paper “envelope” to wrap it in and then pick a press for your seal…..
On the third floor of the museum, I learned about the printing process, including this old typesetting machine…..
This press was ready to print 16 pages from a book in a single pass…..
And this cabinet contained the typeset pages for one book……
In today’s world of instant printing, it is astounding to think how much effort went into the printing of a single book!!!
The workshop was filled with typesetting supplies…..
And they were actually manually printing some items. Check out the video here…..
Next, I was able to print a page with the museum logo on it. I used this simple printing machine…..
When it was my turn to print my name, I first had to select the letters and add it to my print tray…..
It was then placed onto a large printing plate. Strong magnets hold the pieces in place……
The print dyes are inked with a brayer…..
The paper is place on top and a large roller is passed over the paper, producing a perfect printing…..
The sunshine embossing finished out the page.
The final stage in the museum was making marbled paper, something that I have done before, but was SO much fun anyway…..
This was one of my favorite museums….ever!!! It had tons of information (even in English), and provided a great atmosphere. There was even a homage to toilet paper…..
…including information that may be considered as TMI!!!
Finally, I turned toward home, passing one fun photo opportunity….
At the local Coop store, I picked up a few items but the checkout lines were super long so I decided that I would use the Express (Self check out) line. I was feeling smug as I scanned the items and put them into my bag and then I hit the bread……
I had NO idea what it was called or how to scan it so I quietly took everything out of my shopping bag, put it back into my basket and slinked my way back to the Check-out counters!! I have learned my lesson!!!!
There was a LOT of walking and a LOT of time on my feet, so it was good to be home again!!!
One thought on “It’s Wednesday so let’s hit a museum or two!!”
What great museums!! The teddy bears would have easily won me over. But I also thought the hands on activities were a brilliant idea for a museum to provide. Very impressed with that one.