Capital of the homonymous canton, it enjoys an incomparable view of the Alps and the Jura; its approximately 35,000 inhabitants mostly speak French and consider themselves children of a sunny, nonconformist, and festive land.
Every summer, Neuchatel hosts swarms of street artists at the colorful Busker’s Festival, celebrates its cultural roots with the Romandy Popular Theater Festival and, in September, bursts into the grape harvest celebrations. Its urban layout is very pleasant and rational, with residential neighborhoods resting on the slope of Chaumont and monumental areas concentrated between the lake and the hill. For the visit, it is best to start from the lakefront, where parking is also concentrated, and head to the old town via rue de l’Hotel de Ville, which flaunts prestigious buildings such as the eighteenth-century Theater, the Hotel Communal, a former orphanage also from the eighteenth century, and, at the corner with rue de l’Hopital, the mighty Municipal Palace with neoclassical lines. Also on this street, which is one of the arteries of the old town, is the beautiful Fontaine de la Justice from 1547, with its effective allegory of the different types of power (the pope, the sultan, the emperor, and the mayor). But the heart of old Neuchatel beats in Place des Halles, dominated by the Maison des Halles, a splendid sixteenth-century building that sports charming projecting turrets adorned with spires: used to house the grain market on the ground floor and the cloth market on the first floor. Upon reaching the characteristic intersection called Croix-du-Marché, you can take the small street that gently climbs the hill where the Castle and the Cathedral stand. The former has origins in the 11th century and, despite being heavily remodeled in the early 1900s, still proudly displays corner towers, cross-shaped windows, and a suggestive overhanging patrol walkway supported by corbels. The Cathedral was built between the 12th and 13th centuries; originally a Catholic church, it embraced the Reformation in 1530. The exterior is a pleasing blend of Romanesque, Gothic, Burgundian Gothic lines and forms, and one of the two towers is even 19th-century. The interior is marked by three naves, and in the presbytery, the beautiful sculptural group of the sepulchral monument of the Counts of Neuchatel, the ancient rulers, stands out.
