Vallée de Tavannes

The Biel to Delémont railway serves Sonceboz, Tavannes, Reconvilier, Malleray-Bévilard, Court and Moutier, covering the whole valley end to end. By car, the A16 Transjurane motorway links Biel to Moutier and Delémont, with exits at Tavannes and Moutier. From the Vallon de Saint-Imier, the road runs via Sonceboz in about fifteen minutes.

Good to know: the stations at Reconvilier and Malleray-Bévilard are a few minutes' walk from the mini-golf and the indoor pool. On this stretch the train genuinely replaces the car, pushchair included.

The indoor Orval pool in Bévilard is the valley's off-season standby, with heated water and a small shallow basin. The Reconvilier mini-golf works from about four or five, provided you accept that the rules stay flexible. The valley-floor paths along the Birse are flat and gravelled, so pushchair-friendly, and the villages themselves are level to walk through.

The Pierre Pertuis, between Tavannes and Sonceboz, is a natural rock arch pierced by a Roman road, its ancient inscription still readable: a ten-minute stop that children remember for years. Downstream, the Court gorges follow the river and the railway line through a narrow limestone cut. Higher up, the Moron tower above Malleray is climbed by an internal staircase and opens, on a clear day, onto the whole Alpine chain from the Bernese Oberland eastwards.