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With its church steeples, venerable colleges and grand hotels perched on the banks of the Rhine, Basel exudes the sort of historic classiness you’d expect of Switzerland‘s wealthiest city.

Drugs have provided a big chunk of Basel’s modern wealth. No, no, nothing illicit - we‘re talking medicinal here, in the city that serves as the HQ of several of the world’s biggest pharmaceuticals companies such as Novartis and Hoffman-Roche.

The roots of Basel’s role as the world’s pharmacy go back to the 16th century, when it emerged as the silk capital of Europe. Right up to the end of the 19th century, the city provided for everyone from commoners in search of ribbons to the lingerie needs of Queen Victoria. With silk came a need for dyes, and with dyes came expertise in chemicals. The decision to go high-tech with pharmaceuticals rather than sprawling plants must have appealed to the Swiss psyche - precise, clean, lucrative.

Basel has a more racy drug-related history, mind you, as the birthplace of LSD - even if the locals are far more likely to boast about tennis ace Roger Federer being born here rather than psychedelia! In ay case, chemist Albert Hoffman’s 1943 discovery of the archetypal 1960s Flower Power drug was simply part of a long Basel tradition of intellectual exploration.

Situated at the highest navigable spot on the Rhine, Basel’s port status gave it a strategic importance from its earliest days as a pre-Roman Celtic settlement. By the medieval era, it had become one of the crossroads of Europe. Wealthy then as now, Basel was a natural place to found Switzerland’s oldest university in 1459, and over the intervening centuries the city attracted intellectual giants ranging from Erasmus to Nietszche.

Basel remains a cosmopolitan place where euros are as acceptable as Swiss francs, and the locals freely scatter their Swiss German with words like “merci” and “ciao”. The city even has three separate train stations, one each to serve destinations in nearby France and Germany as well as Swiss ones.

For the modern-day visitor, the main fruits of Basel’s wealth are some fine shopping and the biggest concentration of museums and galleries (over 30) for its size of any city in the world. As well as high-profile cultural temples, there are smaller places delving into such things as paper-making, dolls and cartoons. There’s even the world’s smallest museum - a display cabinet set into the walls of a medieval lane, which showcases a changing selection of objects big enough to fit in a pocket!

Of the main venues, the Kunstmuseum on St. Alban-Graben boasts the world‘s finest collection of paintings by Hans Holbein, as well as the Campari Bar, a hip hangout especially during the renowned Basel art fair held each June. By way of contrast, its sister museums, the Museum für Gegenwartskunst and the Kunsthalle Basel, showcase work from the 1960s onwards. Inside the Barfusserkirche, the city’s Historical Museum offers a gloriously diverse panorama of the history of the Upper Rhine, with an excellent offshoot music museum nearby.

If you want more modern art, your must-see is the Fondation Bayeler, where a superb collection of 20th century masters comes wrapped in a Renzo Piano-designed steel-and-glass edifice overlooking rolling countryside a quarter hour tram ride from the town centre.

Design gurus, on the other hand, should hop on a bus for the 20-minute ride to Weil Am Rhein just over the border in Germany. Here, on the appropriately-named Charles-Eames-Strasse, hip furniture maker Vitra (design-museum.de) has created a fabulous showcase for their interiors icons, complemented by equally eye-catching buildings by the likes of Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid. A new addition by Swiss architectural stars Herzog & de Meuron is in the pipeline.

All over Basel, rich history sits easily alongside upmarket modernity. Playful sculptures by Swiss artist Jean Tinguely twirl in fountain spray a stone’s throw from the period facades of Barfussplatz. All around the hills of the Old Town, shop windows cram modern design or hip couture into buildings dating back to medieval days.

Given its wealth, it’s no surprise Basel’s streets are lined with retail temptation. Spalenberg is the coolest neighbourhood, a warren of little lanes between the Markplatz - home to the splendidly ornate 16th century Town Hall - and the Spalentor, an imposing gate set into the medieval town walls.

Though price tags in glitzy department stores like Globus on Marktplatz or fashion temples like Trois Pommes on Freie Strasse can be sky high, you‘re more likely to wince when you sit down in a restaurant and open the menu. Clearly used to dishing up nosh for a plethora of bankers and corporate bigwigs, it’s not uncommon for main courses to be on the wrong side of £20 each, often for fairly uninspired meat dishes or simple Italian.

There are places, though, which echo the class of the surrounding city. Stucki Bruderholz offers French food in a villa-like setting on Bruderholzallee, with prices to match its Michelin star. Art lovers, meanwhile, should book a table at Chez Donati on St. Johanns-Vorstadt, where Italian dishes are accompanied by artwork from star names like Willem de Kooning and Richard Serra.

Design aficionados may also go for Johann (St. Johanns-Ring) for its grey minimalist décor as well as a decent, frequently changing menu. Futuristic sushi bar Noohn (Henric Petri-Strasse) is another hip hangout, as is Acqua, a former industrial building a stone’s throw from Basel Zoo that serves yet another Italian menu in surroundings that manage to be both cosy and minimalist at the same time.

Coffee and cake are sound bets, too, in a town that loves its confectionery. At the Mercedes Café on Schneidergasse, run by the wife of Basel’s leading Mercedes dealer (a busy job hereabouts), you share the colourful modern space with a gleaming hunk of four-wheeled Teutonic temptation.

For a more traditional ambience, walk a couple of hundred yards to Café Schliek. This wood-panelled Basel institution on Marktplatz has been dispensing calorie-filled goodies and damn fine coffee to well-to-do locals for the last 150 years. Stuffing my face with a seasonal autumn cake made with chestnuts, it makes a perfect spot to recharge after a morning of Old Town strolling.

I’d walked plenty the night before too, thanks to the draw of the Autumn Fair. The world’s oldest continuous fair, it’s filled Basel‘s streets with bright lights, entertainments and general boisterousness every November since 1471.

While there are plenty of takers for the stomach-churning adrenaline rides, I’m happy enough just to get a grandstand view of the night-time city with a spin on one of Europe’s biggest Ferris Wheels. Back on the ground, I wander among stalls where locals browse crafts and foodie gifts, pausing to fortify themselves with mulled wine or filling snacks piled high with melted cheese. Come in December and Basel‘s Christmas market offers more of the same with an added sprinkling of seasonal magic.

If you’re after something more dissolute, head to Messerplatz on the south side of the river, a part of town known as Klein Basel and take the express lift to Bar Rouge. Set on the 31st floor of the Messeturm, Basel's tallest building, it’s the place for cocktails with a stunning view from both the bar and the loos! For anyone appalled by the prospect of drinking to Euro-rock, admire the view then head back towards the river where, underneath the Johanniter Bridge, the Cargo Bar is a hangout for Basel’s more bohemian set.

On my last morning, I headed over the Mittlere Brucke - the main pedestrian route from the Old Town to Klein Basel - for a constitutional along the south bank. The riverside houses look lovely, bathed in autumn sun, as I walk along the simply-named Solitude Promenade to another of Basel’s cultural temples. The Tinguely Museum is a lovely place, its homage to local artist Jean Tinguely a joyous display of colour and movement that you wish wasn’t set so close to the traffic snarling across the adjacent Schwarzwald Bridge.

Heading back towards the centre, I find peace again by taking to the water in time-honoured Basel fashion, crossing the Rhine on the St-Alban ferry, one of four that uses the river current and an overhead line to drift lazily across the famous waterway.

St Alban provides my Basel swansong, a quiet riverside neighbourhood of little cobbled lanes and venerable old buildings, some turned into yet more museums. In the Papermaking Museum, I join fascinated kids watching calligraphers at work and metal letters being made, before taking up the offer to place a secret note into a tiny envelope and getting it expertly sealed with a daub of hot wax stamped with the Swiss cross. Small and precise, with a charming nod to the past - Basel encapsulated.

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