Basel worth a stay?

IMO: No. If you have three days to spare, that time can easily be spent in the Alps. Especially the Berner Oblerland region: Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Wengen, Murren. If you must do the cities, Lausanne or Luzern would be better choices.

Butch, In those circumstances, I'd prefer three days in Lucerne. It's a beautiful city with lots to see. You could also take a day trip to Mt. Pilatus or a cruise on the lake.

I lived in Basel for a few summers. It is a nice city. All of Switzerland is quite expensive. Expect to drop a few dollars there. But if you want a few recommendations on places to eat and such, I can give you them for Basel. Otherwise I would recommend going to another Swiss city- like the other people in this reply mentioned. Lucerne is to die for.. More so than Basel.

Here is a listing of sights from the Basel website. You can decide if there is anything that you would call worth a stay. Basel is on the list of the most expensive cities in the world. I don't know that you want to stay in the city. However, there are places to see around Basel. The Rhein flows down to the north. On the left bank is the French Alsace (Colmar and Strasbourg); on the right bank is the southern Black Forest (Titisee and Freiburg). To the east, at Schaffhausen, on the incoming Rhein, is Rheinfalls and farther east is the Bodensee. There are train connections from Schaffhausen to the Zürich airport in less than an hour.

We too were in Basel at the end of a river cruise and had to wait there for a few nights until we could get our rental car in Germany. It was VERY expensive!!! A rather pretty city though and one advantage was that accomodations there typically include free city transportation. So we spent a lot of time doing that, walking by the river, enjoying the competition of a Marathon run. But Lee is so right, there is much more to see that is very close by and well worth looking into. Happy travels!