Ticino-Switzerland : May 5-6 Neuchatel, Switzerland

Rick and I stayed in Neuchatel after the football game. We had not been up in this area of French speaking Switzerland. There is a big castle on a high point in the town, but it's strange - you can't see it from anywhere in the town. I got the best picture from the train.

Neuchatel was a nice city with quite a large old city center. Very medieval. I still think the city of Chur has one of the nicest medieval centers. We were very lucky not to have rain - just a couple of drops. It was supposed to rain. During the day on Monday, in the afternoon we decided to hop on the train to see the town of La Chaux de Fonds, north of Neuchatel and very near France. It is famous for watchmaking. I took no pictures of La Chaux de Fonds because surprisingly, it was depressing and so different from everything else we've seen in Switzerland. It had a very depressed old center, and the main part of the city, from the 1800's, is actually noted for how they made straight streets - having the watchmakers workshops on the street level and their homes above. This type of organization helped the industry with each step of the watchmaking process. We found the town had a dirty feeling, just really not like the usual Switzerland. And if anyone is looking to buy a watch, you won't find many watch stores in La Chaux de Fonds! Strange. We took the next train back to Neuchatel!

Now, here is a little note. It is pretty much impossible to find a public toilet in Neuchatel, and when you do, you have to pay. This has disappeared in Ticino and in the German part of Switzerland. One thing I have always liked was that in just about every town center there were always nice public toilets. I know this is true in the Italian Ticino part. Now, I didn't visit much of the French part of Switzerland, but from what I saw, no toilets. Needless to say, this was very difficult. I recommend visiting other parts of Switzerland.....