Switzerland with children

Switzerland is an unusually easy country to travel in with children, and the reasons are practical rather than atmospheric.

Transport is nearly free

Under six travel free, always, on everything.

Six to sixteen travel free with a Junior Card when accompanied by a parent. The card costs very little for a year and covers the whole national network — trains, buses, boats, most mountain railways. For a family of four this is the single biggest saving available in Switzerland, and a good many visitors never hear about it.

A Grandchild Card does the same for grandparents.

The trains are built for it

Family carriages on intercity trains have a small play structure inside the carriage — a slide and climbing frame in a double-decker coach — and they are marked on the platform display. They are free and unreserved.

Pushchairs go on without fuss; there are level entrances and space by the doors. Nappy-changing facilities are standard.

Luggage forwarding station to station is worth its cost with small children — see getting around.

What actually works

The mountain railways. A cog railway climbing a cliff face is a better ride than most theme parks, and children who are bored by scenery are not bored by the steepest rack railway in the world or a rotating cable car.

Summer toboggan runs. Metal or concrete chutes with a wheeled sledge, at most resorts, and the single most reliable way to spend an hour. The long ones — Pilatus, Oeschinensee, Grindelwald — are the best.

Swimming. Every lake has a Badi, most are free or nearly, and the water is clean. See the lakes.

Swissminiatur at Melide — the whole country at 1:25 with 3.5 km of model railway.

Technorama at Winterthur — hands-on science, and the best wet-day answer in the country.

Ballenberg — the open-air museum, with animals and craftspeople and room to run.

The Rapperswil children’s zoo, attached to the circus museum, an hour from Zurich by boat.

Cheese and chocolate. A show dairy with a viewing gallery, or the chocolate factory at Broc where the tour ends in a room where you may eat as much as you like.

Bears — the BärenPark in Bern and the sanctuary at Arosa.

What to skip

Long panoramic train journeys. Eight hours in a fixed seat with sealed windows is a poor day for a child; do an hour of the same line on a regional train instead. See the panoramic trains.

The most expensive summits. A child gets the same pleasure from Harder Kulm or Uetliberg as from the Jungfraujoch, at a fraction of the price and half the travel time.

Museums with a lot of glass cases, unless the child is already interested.

Practical notes

• Restaurants are relaxed about children and most have a children’s menu and high chairs. Kitchens close earlier than in southern Europe.
• Supermarkets solve most meal problems and are much cheaper; see Switzerland on a budget.
• Altitude — take the ascent slowly above about 2,500 m, and keep small children hydrated. Sun at height is fierce; hats and sun cream matter more than at home.
• Water fountains everywhere, free and drinkable.
• Prams on mountain paths — many valley-floor and lift-served paths are pushchair-friendly and marked as such; the Bergwanderweg ones are not. See hiking.

Where to base

Somewhere with a lift and a lake within reach: Interlaken, Lucerne, Engelberg or Zurich all work. A base with a train station beats a remote chalet, because the train is what makes the days easy.