Weil, Otterbach, Wiese and Dreiländergarten

Car park in Weil (towards Otterbach, Basel) just past the fire station, Baslerstrasse 41. A parking disc is required for a maximum stay of 10 hours.

(S/E) On leaving the car park, head down the avenue keeping Baslerstrasse on your right; take the small street on the right, then the path on the left (Dr Peter Willmann Allee) and admire the urban art mural on your right. You’ll come to a junction.

(1) Turn slightly to the right and continue straight ahead until you reach a road. Cross it carefully to reach Dreiländerplatz.

(2) Turn right onto Regioweg (with its stones engraved with adjectives in Alemannic, which all dialect speakers will recognise) and follow it to Pirolweg, very close to the Wiese.

(3) Enter Switzerland and take the path on the right towards the Eiserner Steg bridge, which can be seen a few hundred metres away.

(4) Cross the bridge and turn left along the Wiese to follow the river upstream. See Practical Information.
Follow the Wiese to the next bridge, the Weier Steg.

(5) Cross the river and the Wiesendammpromenade path. Here, leave Switzerland and head straight ahead onto the cycle path, then turn right and cross a small bridge over the Krebsbach. Continue left along the small tarmac road, am Sohleck, passing the animal shelter. At the end of the road, go under a small road bridge then take the path on the left into the ‘oval’ of the Dreiländergarten.

(6) Continue along the oval, following a slight first turn right then left, for about 300 metres until you reach a junction (with steps on the left).

(7) Leave the oval and follow a long, straight footpath (Dr Peter Willmann Allee) which leads to the car park. Please note: this footpath crosses the road that runs round Weil and there is no pedestrian crossing. This long footpath is lined with Paulownia trees. See Practical Information.
Walk past the Laguna and other sports facilities to reach the junction where you started.

(1) Keep going in the same direction and return to the car park via the reverse route of the outward journey (S/E).

From (4) to (5) The Wiese rises on the Feldberg and flows into the Rhine nearby, at the port of Basel. At a small lock, there is a restaurant marking the halfway point.
This path along the Wiese is very picturesque and offers a change of scenery.

(4) Eiserner Steg: the iron footbridge and cycle path, built in 1869 and renovated in 2022, is a listed historic monument. It is 55 metres long and 4 metres wide.

From (7) to (1) The Paulownia trees: these tall trees bear bell-shaped flowers clustered in large, mauve-pink bunches. In spring, they are a sight to behold.

Dr Peter Willmann is a former mayor of Weil am Rhein who worked to ensure that Grün99 could be established. An avenue in the park is named after him.

The route is entirely in the open; best avoided in very hot weather.

The Dreiländergarten is a 32-hectare park created for the Grün 99 horticultural exhibition. 42 million DM were invested in the creation of the exhibition and the park. Before that, it was a wasteland, an unclaimed area with allotments and a gravel pit that remained in operation until 1996. All that remains of the gravel pit is the Kieswerk building, at point (6) on the left, now a listed industrial monument and converted into an art gallery and artists’ studio.

The Schlaichturm, on the right after the waterworks building (Wasserwerk), between points (7) and (1), is a 24-metre-high steel tower built in 1999 for the Grün 99 exhibition. It connects the Dreiländergarten with the Gartenstadt district of Weil am Rhein. There is a viewing platform at a height of 20 metres, offering a beautiful view of the Dreiländergarten, Basel and the Wiesental.

Gartenstadt (Garden City) is a neighbourhood listed as a historic monument, built in the early 20th century by the architect Adolf Lorenz to house the workers involved in the construction and subsequent commissioning of the marshalling yard.

The Hadid Pavilion, near the viewpoint (6), also known as Landscape Formation One or LF One, is a 140-metre-long concrete and glass building with a green roof, designed by the Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid for the Grün 99 exhibition. Today it is the headquarters of the TRUZ/CTE Trinational Centre for the Environment. The building can be hired for private events.