Fribourg

Fribourg is the largest genuinely bilingual city in Switzerland, and the language border does not run past it — it runs through it, along the Sarine. German on one bank, French on the other, and a great many people who switch mid-sentence without noticing.

It is also one of the best-preserved medieval towns in the country, and much less visited than it deserves. Where Bern is sandstone and orderly, Fribourg is grey molasse stone falling steeply into a river gorge, with high bridges over it.

The old town

The Basse-Ville, down in the loop of the river, is the medieval core: narrow streets, the old Pont de Berne — a covered wooden bridge from the fifteenth century — and the ramparts, of which about two kilometres survive with fourteen towers. You can walk long stretches of the wall.

Above, the Cathédrale Saint-Nicolas has a 74-metre Gothic tower with 368 steps to the top and, over the west door, a Last Judgment tympanum from around 1340 that is among the best Gothic sculpture in Switzerland. Inside there is glass by the Polish Art Nouveau artist Józef Mehoffer, which is a genuine surprise.

The Espace Jean Tinguely – Niki de Saint Phalle, in a converted tram depot, holds work by both — Tinguely was from Fribourg.

The funicular

The town’s best small thing. The funiculaire connecting the upper town to the Basse-Ville has run since 1899 and is counterbalanced by waste water — the descending car fills a tank from the town’s sewage system, and its weight pulls the other car up.

It is the only funicular in Europe still working this way. It takes two minutes, it costs the price of a bus ticket, and on a warm day you can tell what powers it.

The language border

The dividing line has a name — the Röstigraben — and Fribourg sits astride it. The city is officially Fribourg/Freiburg, written both ways; the canton is two-thirds French-speaking; and the university teaches in both languages, which makes it the only bilingual university in the country.

Practically, everyone in the centre speaks French, most also speak German, and the street signs are in French with German where the population warrants it. See languages in Switzerland.

Getting there

• By train — Bern 25 minutes, Lausanne 45 minutes, Geneva an hour and a quarter, Zurich about an hour and a half.
• On foot — the station is in the upper town; the old town is downhill from it, and the funicular brings you back up.

Nearby

• Gruyères — 40 minutes, the castle and the cheese
• Murten/Morat — 30 minutes, a walled lakeside town, also bilingual
• Broc — the chocolate factory in the same direction as Gruyères

What to eat

Fribourg’s contribution is Vacherin Fribourgeois, and the local fondue moitié-moitié — half Vacherin, half Gruyère — which is the version most Swiss consider correct. There is also a pure-Vacherin fondue, eaten with potatoes rather than bread, that hardly exists outside the canton.

When to go

Any time. The old town is stone and works in rain, and the gorge is at its best in autumn. Mid-December brings the Saint Nicholas procession, when the saint arrives on a donkey and reads a satirical speech about the year’s local politics from the cathedral steps.