Swiss Highlights
The Étang de la Gruère on a calm day: the spruce forest and a sky streaked with clouds are mirrored perfectly in the water, with rushes and a clump of reeds in the foreground on the right.

Jura

Regions

The canton of Jura brings together 6 places referenced on Swiss Highlights: 2 natural sites, 1 heritage or cultural site, 2 villages and 1 town.

Not to miss

The Étang de la Gruère on a calm day: the spruce forest and a sky streaked with clouds are mirrored perfectly in the water, with rushes and a clump of reeds in the foreground on the right.

Protected raised bog · Jura

Étang de la Gruère

At 998 metres, in the municipality of Saignelégier, a body of water five hundred metres long bordered by a 56-hectare peat bog, where peat has built up to nine metres thick over twelve thousand years.

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Best Swiss Villages members · “The 50 most beautiful sites” (Switzerland Tourism)

Étang de la GruèreGrottes de RéclèreLöwenburgPleujousePorrentruySaint-Ursanne
Interactive map — schematic view of Switzerland.
The Étang de la Gruère on a calm day: the spruce forest and a sky streaked with clouds are mirrored perfectly in the water, with rushes and a clump of reeds in the foreground on the right.

Protected raised bog · Jura

Étang de la Gruère

At 998 metres, in the municipality of Saignelégier, a body of water five hundred metres long bordered by a 56-hectare peat bog, where peat has built up to nine metres thick over twelve thousand years.

In a vast underground chamber, an imposing calcite formation in ochre and mauve tones rises from the floor to touch the vault, under artificial lighting that alternates warm tones and bluish reflections; a safety railing lines the passage in the foreground.

Show cave · Jura

Grottes de Réclère

A pit that farmers called the 'Trou du Fahy' and used as a dump, revealed by the regional press in 1889: the Grottes de Réclère formed by collapse in a Jurassic limestone about 155 million years old.

Slightly elevated view of the fortified Löwenburg estate: a long whitewashed building with a brown tiled roof, pierced by rows of shuttered windows, extends toward a chapel with buttresses and a corner turret; a lawn crossed by a gravel path draws the eye toward the ensemble, under a clear blue sky, with a few trees on the right of the frame.

Hamlet and ruin · Jura

Löwenburg

The hamlet of Löwenburg, the only German-speaking part of the commune of Pleigne, combines a castle ruin founded in the 10th century with a 16th-century fortified farm; the Christoph Merian Foundation of Basel has restored it since 1956.

Pleujouse Castle and its round tower rise above a grove of bare, frost-covered trees, with the small adjoining stone house, under a clear blue winter sky.

Castle village · Ajoie

Pleujouse

At 580 metres, between forested heights, Pleujouse amounts to one street. The village formed around its fortress, which passed to the bishopric of Basel at the end of the 14th century and was rebuilt after the fire of 1980.

From the castle terrace, the large round tower with a conical roof occupies the right of the frame, against the long whitewashed building; below spread the brown and red roofs of the old town of Porrentruy, the light-colored church steeple, and behind them the wooded hills of the Jura under a pale blue summer sky.

Town · Ajoie, canton of Jura

Porrentruy

Driven from Basel by the Reformation, the prince-bishops settled in Porrentruy after 1528; their supposedly provisional residence lasted until 1828. Castle, Jesuit college, hôtel-Dieu and stone fountains still hold its measure.

The medieval multi-arched bridge of Saint-Ursanne spans the green waters of the Doubs, in front of the tiled-roof houses and tower of the old town, set against a wooded hillside of the Jura.

Medieval small town · Jura

Saint-Ursanne

Born around a Benedictine abbey, it keeps its Romanesque collegiate church, its cloister and burgher houses from the 14th to the 16th century. At 440 metres, between wooded cliffs and river, it left its isolation only in 1877.