Sarine

Fribourg sits on the Lausanne to Bern railway, forty minutes from Lausanne and twenty from Bern, with trains at least every half hour. From the station, TPF buses cover Villars-sur-Glâne, Marly, Granges-Paccot and Neyruz, and the funicular drops from the upper town to the lower town in two minutes. By car, the A12 serves the city at the Fribourg-Nord, Fribourg-Sud and Matran exits, and Rossens has its own exit further south.

Worth knowing: visit the old town downwards. Take the funicular down and the bus back up, and you skip the final climb, the one that triggers negotiations with tired children.

The Guintzet playground is Fribourg's safe bet: mature trees, an open view towards the Prealps and structures that suit several ages at once. In Villars-sur-Glâne, the playground at the Le Platy sports centre adds a duck pond, which stretches the visit well beyond the slides. The lower town, along the Sarine, is flat and pushchair friendly, whereas the upper old town means cobbles and staircases.

Fribourg is the best equipped part of the canton for rain. The Arena cinema has 4DX and ScreenX screens that turn a film into an outing in its own right, while Les Rex, in the Pérolles district, stays simpler and often cheaper. The Jura minigolf is outdoors but floodlit in the evening, which rescues summer days after a shower. And if the sky clears, the Rossens dam footbridge, twenty minutes south, offers 105 metres suspended above the lake.