After taking children to the paddling pool in Schuttzermatt park a few times, earlier this month, I was surprised to see that the pool was empty today.

I thought they remained full till the end of August. Can anyone tell me if the season has finished, or are these Basel pools just filled on weekdays? Or?

Any suggestions on anywhere else with shallow water in Basel, to take a hot toddler on a hot day?

I've not been walking around Kannenfeld park since they redid it, but they used to have a paddling pool there.

I know it's quite a trip in the opposite direction, but there is a park in Riehen right near their Gemeinde house (between the Riehen Dorf tram stop on the 6 line and the train station) which does have a paddling pool. M-i-l and I can be found there sometimes with the nephews on particularly hot days.

Thanks Peg. I'll do a reccie to Kannenfeld on my bike tomorrow morning, to see if there is water in that pool.

Thinking about it, I believe there is also a kiddie pool / fountain that is alright for kids to take a dip in at the park near St Johan Tor. I think this is another park that's received a fairly recent makeover, hopefully it looks better than last I saw it (which was a few years ago).

There are kiddie pools / kiddie areas at two of the pools I've been swimming myself, Bachgraben is nice, huge, but jam packed much of the time. The other I can think of is an indoor pool in Muttenz, I believe you can get there via the 14 tram and a bit of walk, or one of the post buses goes near, I can't recall which (Hallenbad Muttenz I think is the pool).

We ended up at the Bachgrabben pools today - but again, there was no water in the toddlers pool. Why is that? We made good use of one of the deeper pools though, having the pool to ourselves. I was surprised that there were so few people there. Also, how come the ticket office was closed??