Cathédrale Saint-Nicolas
Start where the whole town looks up to: the Cathédrale Saint-Nicolas stands on raised ground above the old town, and its bell tower rises 74 metres. Builders worked on it from 1283 to 1490, so what you see is two centuries of Gothic work in one silhouette. Before going in, take a minute at the main portal and read the bas-relief of the Last Judgement carved above the doors.
That west portal only became the main entrance when the building was finished in 1490. For two centuries people came in through the south portal instead, because the Bourg quarter opposite the west side was cut off by a ditch. From the 1970s the south portal disappeared under a wooden shell that protected it from the exhaust of heavy traffic rolling past. Only after the Poya Bridge project was approved in 2006 and traffic around the cathedral dropped could it be restored.
Inside is free, and the windows alone justify twenty minutes. Polish painter Józef Mehoffer designed them between 1896 and 1936, one of the most important complete ensembles of Art Nouveau church glass in Europe, joined in 1970 by work from Alfred Manessier. The organ comes from local builder Aloys Moser, built between 1824 and 1834, and it drew Franz Liszt and Anton Bruckner to Fribourg.
For most of its life this was a collegiate church; a papal bull of 17 October 1924 raised it to a cathedral, and on 1 February 1925 Marius Besson took possession as the first bishop of the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg. The tower charges admission, which you pay at the tower entrance. Go up if you want to see the town you are about to walk spread out beneath you.
From the cathedral it is 620 metres, about 9 minutes, to the funicular that once linked the upper town with the Neuveville.
