More beautiful blue skies today, temperature here in Basel is a warm 29°C. We decided to go for a drive to escape the heat in the city we headed for Gempen and the Observation Tower.

The Observation Tower sits atop a mountain above the village of Gempen (canton Soloturn). From the top of the tower the view across the Rhein valley, Basel and the Jura mountains is incredible and on a clear day even the alps are visible.

Since Gempen is 676m above sea level it is always a few degrees cooler than Basel. Gempen is a popular destination for cyclists and hikers so it’s always rather bustling when the weather is fine.

I must admit that I’m really not very good when it comes to heights and it took me quite some time to climb the spiral staircase in the tower, by the time we reached the top my knees were really trembling but it was worth it for the scenery!

After the climb up the tower we thought we’d grab a bite to eat and have something to drink at the Restaurant Gempenturm, unfortunately we were 10 minutes late for the hot menu, all in all the menu was not impressive, we just had something to drink and then went on our merry way.

I chose the scenic route home through Dornach, Reinach, Therwil, Oberwil, Allschwil and then on to Basel, what a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.