Google is the acknowledged champion: its offices are blessed with volleyball courts, bicycle paths, a yellow brick road, a model dinosaur, regular games of roller hockey and several professional masseuses.

ECONOMIST: The depressing vogue for having fun at work

In its 40 years of life, it has turned the Rideau Canal into the world's longest skating rink, planned urban bicycle paths and ski trails in Gatineau Park, and cleared LeBreton Flats, once a timber town and the camping place of lumberjacks and fur-trading voyageurs.

ECONOMIST: Canada

We are just beginning to see the results of the long and successful effort to reclaim the Hudson River waterfront for public use in the river-front gardens and promenades of Lower Manhattan and the tree- and rose-lined bicycle and running paths that have transformed the water's edge on West Street.

WSJ: New York Stadium Deals: Good and Bad

In this compact, canal-packed city with 400km of bike lanes and paths, the bicycle is the primary mode of transport, so visiting pedestrians need to watch out for cyclists just as much, if not more, than cars.

BBC: Living in: Amsterdam

The comparatively less-crowded outer gardens and paths along the 1, 670m-long Grand Canal were once traversed on horseback, so a bicycle makes the perfect modern substitute for exploring the great outdoor expanse.

BBC: Easy breaks from Paris