Capital of the canton of the same name, 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 crowds of street artists at the colorful Busker’s Festival, celebrates its cultural roots with the Festival of Romandy Popular Theater, and in September, bursts into the grape harvest festivities. 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 advisable to start from the lakeside, where the parking lots are also concentrated, and head to the old town via rue de l’Hotel de Ville, which boasts prestigious buildings such as the 18th-century theater, the Hotel Communal, a former orphanage also from the 18th century, and, at the corner with rue de l’Hopital, the imposing Neoclassical Municipal Palace. Also on this street, which is one of the main arteries of the old city, is the beautiful Fontane 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 16th-century building, which sports charming projecting turrets adorned with spires: once the ground floor was the site of the grain market, and the first floor housed the cloth market. Having reached the characteristic intersection called Croix-du-Marché, you can take the street that gently climbs the hill on which stand the Castle and the Cathedral. The former dates back to the 11th century and, despite being heavily altered in the early 20th century, still proudly displays corner towers, cross-shaped windows, and a suggestive projecting patrol walkway with 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 pleasant combination of Romanesque, Gothic, Burgundian Gothic lines and forms, and one of the two towers is even 19th-century. The interior is divided by three naves and, in the presbytery, stands out the beautiful sculptural group of the funerary monument of the counts of Neuchatel, the ancient rulers.
