Liestal

town in, and capital of, the Swiss canton of Basel-Country

Liestal is an industrial town with a cobbled-street Old Town in Switzerland, not far from Basel. It is the capital of the Basel-Landschaft canton, and was home to about 14,000 people in 2018.

Old Town

Get in

By train

Liestal is on the main route from Basel SBB to Olten, and has direct connections to Lucerne, Zurich, Bern, Interlaken and Saint Gallen. There is also an S-Bahn service (S3, Olten - Liestal - Basel - Laufen - Porrentruy) connecting to many local villages along the way.

Narrow gauge steam locomotive built in 1902 and still used for some tourist trips between April and October.

The railway station is also the terminus for the narrow-gauge Waldenburger train, which travels 13 km along the valley to Waldenburg at least twice every hour between 06:00 and 22:00.

By bus

Liestal can also be reached by bus from Basel, starting from Basel Aeschenplatz.

By car

  • Bern about 1 hr (Highway A1)
  • Milan about 3½ hr (Highway A2)
  • Paris about 5 hr (Highway A5)
  • Berlin about 9 hr (Highway A9 and A5)
  • Athens about 1 day (Highway E70)

Get around

At the train station of Liestal, several bus routes serve the surrounding area.

See

Do

Parade of flaming torches at the Chienbäse festival

The Liestal carnival with the Chienbäse parade annually attracts thousands of visitors with its procession of flaming carts and torches. It is held on the Sunday night after Ash Wednesday.

Buy

Eat

Drink

Sleep

Go next

  • The classic trip out of Liestal is to Hinteri Egg, the Hinteri Egg is a hill reaching 1,169 metres above sea level and is the highest point of the canton of Basel-Landschaft.
  • Augusta Raurica, 13 km away, is one of the best preserved Roman settlements north of the Alps.
  • The Wasserfallen region is a set of hills surrounding the village of Reigoldswil, a scenic 35-minute bus ride from Liestal. From here you can take a cable car up into the hills where you can enjoy a rope park, many hikes, cross-country skiing or snow-shoeing, and finally hire a scooter to ride back down into the valley.
  • Take the short bus ride up to Gempen (change at Seewen SO), where there is a viewing tower with views over the whole Basel region, from the Black Forest to the Alps. Then walk down towards the village of Dornach, and on the way visit the ruins of Schloss Dorneck.
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