Basel vs. Fribourg

How about Gruyeres for something a little more rural? Or Murten for its medieval walls and lake side setting.

I vote Basel. It has an old town with lots of small picturesque streets. Photos: https://www.danimu.ch/basel3/
Website: https://www.basel.com/en

P.S. I might be biased ☺

Thanks for the advice. We have been to Gruyeres before, and it is wonderful. On our travel dates, Murten is booked up solid for the Avenches opera festival, so we will be going there later.

We did a 10 day Xmas market holiday in December, based in Colmar. We day tripped to both Basel and Freiburg and while we enjoyed both towns, we were pleasantly surprised with Basel and preferred that to Freiburg. Now, spending a day in each town does not make me an expert, but the old town of Basel was fun and more interesting than I thought it would be.

I've only driven through Fribourg. We stayed in Basel for 1 1/2 days prior to a river cruise. We wanted to get there a day earlier in case we had a flight delay or to start adjusting to the time difference. After I booked the tickets, I started to look for info on Basel. There was not much available, and people seemed indifferent to Basel. And then we got there. Almost immediately we got confused coming from the airport, I blame jetlag because its simple. We stopped at a drugstore. The people couldn't have been nicer and more helpful. I had a hard time getting out and on with my day! I had received some info that Basel tourism mailed to our house so we started with that. All I can say is, Oh my goodness, what a great fun and colorful city. I had a couple walking tours from the tourism office so we walked a lot on both sides of the river. The rathuis is incredible especially so when there is a colorful market displayed on the marketplatz. The munster was interesting and the view behind it was spectacular. Everywhere people were happy and friendly. Would I go to Basel instead of Luzern or Berner Oberland, probably not, but we really enjoyed ourselves immensely. There was a thread in regards, I believe, to Spain/Portugal about what is "missing" from the RS guide. Rick doesn't seem to excited about Basel which really is a shame.

Besides the world-famous Fondation Beyeler and other art museums in Basel, there is the unusual architecture campus/museum/industrial design museum of the Vitra Corporation, very very close in Weil-am-Rhein, Germany. If you don't care about the taxi charges, I loved Roman site Augusta Raurica not far east in Switzerland. Remember that Switzerland is very expensive.

Edit: Freiburg (Sister City of Madison, Wisconsin ... ) is nice enough, but too far, and out of your travel way. It's not that representative of the Black Forest, either.

"If you don't care about the taxi charges, I loved Roman site Augusta Raurica not far east in Switzerland. Remember that Switzerland is very expensive."

I didn't go to this sight but I did look into it. It sounded incredibly interesting, but we would have had to sacrifice time in Basel. There was some transportation, a bus or a train, or some combination. I also believe it was free or inexpensive, so if a taxi is necessary, consider that the attraction isn't expensive.

Fribourg / Freiburg do not get confused

These are two different places with the same name.
French-speaking Fribourg is in Switzerland, west of Bern. It is also called Freiburg in German
Germany speaking Freiburg im Breisgau is north of Basel, across the river Rhine from Colmar in France. It is called Fribourg in French, and some road signs on the French side of the Rhine signpost it as "Fribourg".
As you can see, there is plenty of scope for confusion.

I and most of the other posters assumed the OP is talking about Swiss Fribourg. Are we correct?
@Jay_MN - I guess you talking about German Freiburg im Breisgau, because you say you day-tripped from Colmar.
@Tim - You are also talking about German Freiburg im Breisgau, because you mention the Black Forest.

"If you don't care about the taxi charges, I loved Roman site Augusta Raurica not far east in Switzerland. Remember that Switzerland is very expensive." - No way I would pay a Swiss taxi to go that far. I have been to Augusta Raurica many times, there is a good bus service from Basel.

Thank you all for your posts. Yes, I was referring to the Swiss city Fribourg. We will be stopping there on the way from Basel to Lausanne in the Lake Geneva area. Didn't know there was a German town with the same name so close.