A short(er) stay in Switzerland

Heading off from our brief stopover at Besançon, we pointed the van in the direction of La Suisse – a first for Mr B, and a logical route on to Croatia that would enable us to stop off and see an old friend of Mrs B’s whom she’d met when travelling by campervan in Greece 38 years ago!

Driving in Switzerland in a vehicle over 3.5 tonnes puts us into the HGV category, meaning that rather than being obliged to purchase an annual vignette valid for cars and smaller vans (a relatively simple process) at the border, we needed to fill out a form for a shorter, 10-day travel pass for an HGV.  We needn’t have worried though, as the charming, designer-bearded young border guard, amused by my struggling French, very kindly offered in English, to fill out the detailed form with us, ending in a Swiss Franc fee of CHF32.50 that enabled us to drive on Swiss roads for up to 10 days, of our choice, and by our own recording. And of course, as this is a country that for owners of two or more vehicles, you only need one number plate/ tax and insurance, on the logical basis that you can only be driving one at a time, we simply needed to declare days that we were using the roads. So, our four-day visit only needed us to use up two days, as we were camping and stationary for two, leaving us eight to use by a year’s time! Given that this fee also includes driving on any roads, including motorways and tunnels, we decided it represented very good value indeed!

Entering Switzerland near Le Locle in the French-speaking Canton of Neuchâtel, we camped up at the mediaeval village of Le Landeron, near lake Bienne and a short ride by train into the town of Neuchâtel to see Mrs B’s friend Pat. Much to our surprise and delight, we were informed by the very helpful woman on reception that we would be issued with a free public transport pass for the whole Canton, something we made full use of, and that enabled us to leave the van as we travelled about. This was included in our ‘tax de sejour’ (tourist tax), which although slightly higher than we are used to paying in France, at CHF2 each per day, seemed a pretty good deal all round as it covered trains, buses and any funiculars in the Canton that took our fancy.

And so with some trepidation at using a public transport network we were both new to, we set off in the early evening of our first day in Switzerland by train to meet Pat. Knowing that the Swiss state recognises four languages officially, French, German, Italian and Romansch, we were surprised to see that apart from the banknotes, our experience was driven by the particular Canton – so we saw French, German and English – making getting about pretty easy. And this being Switzerland, the trains were very punctual as well as spotlessly clean!

After a great evening learning more about Switzerland and experiencing classic Swiss cuisine and drinks with Pat, we managed to get the last train back to the campsite, marvelling once more at the contrast between public transport in the UK and mainland Europe.

The next day saw a fabulous blue sky and the promise of a walk with Pat to see some of the local sights.

And so we set off for a walk along the shore of lake Bienne, first having a wander around the fabulous little mediavel town of La Neuveville, before stopping for lunch in Liguerz, in the next Canton, at one of the many small vineyards that hug the north shore of the lake. Whilst we were prepared for some of the more obvious sights of picture postcard houses with steep roofs, perched on the hillsides, we weren’t expecting the rather clever aerial cat walkway up the side of this house!

Lunch proved to be interesting on a number of levels – the fabulous ‘eye of the partridge’ local rosé wine, and a dip into some schoolboy German (we’d walked across the border into the next Canton) and – totally unexpected, a natter in Spanish with the owner’s wife who hailed from Argentina! They recommended visiting the local viewpoint for views to the Alps, and as we wandered towards the start on the climb, Pat spotted that the funicular railway car was about to leave and so we hopped aboard – marvelling again at public transport in Switzerland, as the carriages climbed up to the village of Préles. Here, we were able to enjoy incredible views across the lake to the Alps, with an orientation table pointing out no less than the north face of the Eiger! The photo doesn’t really do justice to the clarity with which we could make out different peaks, pretty much across our whole field of view. With more weather like this, we decided we could quite easily stay for a few days exploring the eastern end of Switzerland and the towns along the way!

On the way down, we hopped off at a beautiful little village church to admire the views again.

Our walk back took us through the vineyards, most of them what could be described as smallholdings, and all of them very neatly maintained, with more fabulous views across the vines to the lake and the Alps beyond.

Saying our farewells to Pat after what turned out to be a very pleasant 11 mile yomp through some truly spectacular scenery, we settled in for the night and scanned the weather forecast for the next few days, hoping to explore more of the eastern end of the country before heading over the border into Italy and on to Croatia. The weather gods were not looking kindly on us though, and we looked to be heading into the edge of a pretty wet and miserable cold front, with lashings of storm warnings and rain…

Determined to see at least a bit more of Neuchâtel before we headed off, we decided to visit the old town and the ‘famous’ museum at ‘Latenium’ on the shores of lake Neuchâtel. Whether this museum is internationally famous, or Mr B’s fascination with Professor Alice Roberts and things Celtish had elevated it to such status, it was on the itinerary for our penultimate day.

Bad luck for us, the weather forecast was accurate and we headed off on the train to Neuchâtel in rain and under lowering skies. After a brief and wet traipse through the old town to admire the chateau, we decided to get a bite to eat and hop on the tram to Latenium.

The museum was very well laid out and informative, with an incredible 2^nd Century AD Roman transport boat and Roman and Celtish artefacts aplenty. However, the golden Celtic ‘torc’ that Mr B was sure Prof Alice had waxed lyrical about being discovered in the lake was nowhere to be seen, leaving one of us wondering exactly what he had been focussing on…

As we left the museum, we stopped to admire the re-creations of Celtic lake-side living, and started to think carefully about route planning with more of this sort of weather on the horizon.

And, after a night of more heavy rain, and storms forecast for Italy and northern Croatia as well as Switzerland, we decided to cut our stay here short and alter our route to take in a bit of Provence and the Cote d’Azur instead, hoping for a break in the rain and a few days of sunshine.

S&J.