Switzerland Family Cultural Discovery Tour Package

Evening: Back along the lake into Zurich. In summer the light holds until nearly ten.

Morning: The Swiss National Museum, beside the station in a building that looks like a castle. Armour, coins, clocks and Swiss history from the start. Entry is covered by your pass.

Midday: Tram and a short train to Kilchberg on the lake shore, about twenty-five minutes.

Afternoon: Lindt Home of Chocolate - the nine-metre chocolate fountain in the atrium, the making-of exhibition, and a tasting area at the end that no child has ever walked past quickly. Entry included.

Morning: Direct train Zurich to Bern, about an hour, twice hourly. Your first of only two hotel changes.

Old Town: A UNESCO World Heritage site with six kilometres of covered arcades - which means shopping and walking in the rain without anyone getting wet.

Zytglogge: The medieval clock tower puts on a mechanical figure show four minutes before every hour. Free to watch from the street, and worth timing your walk around.

BearPark: Brown bears in a riverside enclosure below the old town - Bern's own symbol, free to visit, and usually the thing children talk about that evening.

Morning: Bern to Gruyeres, about ninety minutes with one change, through the Fribourg countryside.

Gruyeres Castle: Eight hundred years old, sitting above a walled village with no cars in it. Ramparts, armour and a view over the pre-Alps. Entry included.

La Maison du Gruyere: A working dairy where you watch the wheels being made through glass, with a children's audio guide narrated by a cow. Entry included.

Maison Cailler, Broc: Ten minutes further by train. The oldest chocolate brand in Switzerland, with a walk-through factory tour and an unlimited tasting room at the end. Entry included.

Morning: Einstein House on Kramgasse - the second-floor flat where he wrote the special relativity paper in 1905, kept as it was. Small, quick and genuinely memorable for older children. Entry included.

Midday: Zentrum Paul Klee, a wave-shaped Renzo Piano building on the edge of the city with a dedicated children's studio where kids make their own work rather than only look. Entry included.

Afternoon: The Gurten funicular from Wabern - ten minutes up Bern's own hill, covered by your pass. Playground, miniature railway in season, and the Bernese Alps on the horizon.

Why this day works: One indoor museum, one hands-on museum and one hilltop with space to run. That order is deliberate on the middle day of a trip.

Morning: Direct train Bern to Lucerne, about an hour. Your second and last hotel change.

Chapel Bridge: The oldest surviving wooden covered bridge in Europe, with painted panels in the roof beams and the octagonal water tower beside it. Free.

Lion Monument: A dying lion carved into a rock face ten minutes away, which Mark Twain called the saddest piece of stone in the world. Free, and children tend to remember the story.

Afternoon: A Lake Lucerne steamer from the quay outside the station, covered by your pass. An hour on the water with mountains on both sides and no ticket to buy.