Wetter the better: Gothenburg’s bold plan to be world’s best rainy city

It rains nearly 40% of the time in the Swedish city - so why not try to make the most of it?

When they wake up on a Saturday morning to find rain coursing down the windows of their Gothenburg apartment, four-year-old Enja Backstrom and her six-year-old brother Charlie often still want to go out to play.

That's because their local playground has been designed to be particularly fun when it's wet. There are dips in the ground to make the puddles deeper and more satisfyingly splashy, and water gushes down channels from lilypad-shaped rain shelters into a sandpit where children can make pools, rivers and dams. The kids love to go on their bicycles through the puddles, and my son likes to dig the sands, so some parts of the playground are really nice when it rains," says their mother, Jessica Backstrom.