Swiss Highlights
The paved square of Auvernier under a stormy sky: in the centre, a stone-column fountain with its long basin; on the left, ochre-red and yellow façades with blue shutters along a lane sloping downward; on the right, a yellow stone wall bearing the large painted letters "Coste — vins en gros"; behind the tiled roofs, a slate spire and dark clouds.

Neuchâtel

Regions

The canton of Neuchâtel brings together 7 places referenced on Swiss Highlights: 3 natural sites, 0 heritage or cultural sites, 3 villages and 1 town.

Not to miss

A male Alpine ibex, with long ringed horns, stands on a snowy slope at the Creux du Van; behind it rise wooded Jura ridges under a pink end-of-day sky.

Rock cirque · Neuchâtel

Creux du Van

A limestone wall closes an arc 1,000 to 1,400 metres across. Ibex, chamois and lynx live in the 15.5 km² reserve around the cirque, crowned by Le Soliat at 1,464 metres.

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

AuvernierCreux du VanGrande CariçaieLa Chaux-de-FondsLe LanderonSaut du DoubsValangin
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The paved square of Auvernier under a stormy sky: in the centre, a stone-column fountain with its long basin; on the left, ochre-red and yellow façades with blue shutters along a lane sloping downward; on the right, a yellow stone wall bearing the large painted letters "Coste — vins en gros"; behind the tiled roofs, a slate spire and dark clouds.

Wine village · Neuchâtel

Auvernier

First recorded in 1011, Auvernier lived on fishing and on the vine. Its castle of 1559 keeps its vaulted cellars, the canton set up its school of viticulture here in 1888, and the law has protected the vineyard plots since 1974.

A male Alpine ibex, with long ringed horns, stands on a snowy slope at the Creux du Van; behind it rise wooded Jura ridges under a pink end-of-day sky.

Rock cirque · Neuchâtel

Creux du Van

A limestone wall closes an arc 1,000 to 1,400 metres across. Ibex, chamois and lynx live in the 15.5 km² reserve around the cirque, crowned by Le Soliat at 1,464 metres.

A vast golden reed bed of the Grande Cariçaie crossed by a calm water channel dotted with water lilies, which joins Lake Neuchâtel lined with a row of poplars; on the horizon, the hills of the Jura rise in tiers under a summer sky heavy with cumulus clouds.

Lakeshore marsh · Lake Neuchâtel

Grande Cariçaie

Eight intercantonal nature reserves cover about 3,000 hectares of reedbed, marsh and flooded forest. The landscape only exists because the Jura water correction lowered the lake by 2.7 metres between 1868 and 1891.

Winter aerial view of La Chaux-de-Fonds: under a deep blue sky, the town stretches its long parallel streets along the bottom of a snow-covered valley, the white roofs forming a regular grid between the pastures and fir forests of the Jura, the horizon closed off in the distance by a sea of fog.

Watchmaking town · Neuchâtel

La Chaux-de-Fonds

At close to 1,000 metres, in a valley with no surface water, the streets cross at right angles. The 2009 listing honours no monument but a plan: that of a town where workshop and dwelling shared the same building.

Cobbled street of the town of Le Landeron under a deep blue sky: on the left a red and white heraldic fountain set against a white façade, then a row of pastel-toned houses — yellow, ochre, almond green — up to the Town Hall with its overhanging gable and gothic arched doors, against which several bicycles are leaning.

Fortified town · Neuchâtel

Le Landeron

Catholic while the whole county of Neuchâtel turned Protestant between 1530 and 1562, Le Landeron owed its confessional enclave and its fortified town to the backing of its allies from Solothurn, bound by treaty since 1449.

Classic elevated view of the Saut du Doubs, surrounded by dense forest: the Doubs plunges from a cliff in a white sheet of water, a rainbow forms in the spray at the foot of the falls, and two visitors stand on the observation platform to the right.

Cross-border waterfall · Neuchâtel Jura

Saut du Doubs

The landslide that created the falls, some 12,000 years ago, also formed a 15-km natural reservoir, of which the 3.7-km Lac des Brenets is the remnant. The natural dam is not watertight: 3 m³ of water escapes through it every second.

A street in the old town of Valangin, lined with cream, white and beige facades with red shutters; at the far end stand the pointed-roofed gate tower bearing a clock and the slender bell tower of the collegiate church, while a car and a cyclist travel along the cobbled roadway.

Village · Neuchâtel

Valangin

The castle holds the rock that commands the passage; the bourg was founded below it around 1330, the collegiate church consecrated in 1505. In 1853 the beds described here gave their name to the Valanginian.