Spring 2024

Neuchâtel - 6 April 2024

06.04 - Creux du Van/Chez-le-Bart/Neuchâtel

It doesn’t matter which country you’re in - Friday night and there are boy racers around! Luckily they sped off by about 10.30pm!

This morning we got the binoculars out with the information board in front of us trying to work out which mountain was which - not sure we managed to agree!

My turn to drive. About an hour, through a fairly large town, then up and up. Was fairly winding - but luckily not too busy - and there were places for people to pass.

We drove up to Creux du Van. Described as the most impressive limestone cirque in Europe. It’s 1,200m wide and 2,000m long. A plant known as wormwood grows here, from which absinthe is derived.

I’d watched some YouTube videos last night, my stomach lurched even doing that due to the huge drop! The area is vast, stunning and very high. Today was extremely windy too.

There was, of course, the ‘influencer’ type of person getting far too close to the edges for my comfort!

Lots of people with some good looking pooches too - some dogs seemed to be drawn to playing in the remaining snow.

One of the actual hikes up to Creux du Van took around 9 hours - not sure we’d be up to that. It was only at 1,386m, and with the wind - felt like we were unfit walking around today - highly likely we are too! Anyway - about 9,000 steps today.

Had lunch in Dave - shock horror - no baguette - had to make do with another avocado salad 😊

Tintin wanted his turn at driving - about 30 minutes later and we parked up at Chez-le-Bart - right at the waterfront of lake Neuchâtel. Had a wander. Decided I needed to go for a swim. A bit fresh, but no colder than home I don’t think.

We’ve sat out in the sunshine for the rest of the afternoon - just people watching and reading books.

There were a couple of young bengal like cats - only managed to snap one. They were here all afternoon, running around and playing - really cute. ☺️

We also watched a man on his wing foil board. It looks like really hard work to stay up. He was constantly bending his knees and lifting his arms. He fell with style quite a few times - must have been exhausting!

We decided to take a punt, and leave our carpark to drive to Neuchâtel. We had varying reports saying the ice-rink carpark lakeside was free from either 7/8 or 9pm and free on Sunday until 7am on Monday morning. Took about 20 minutes to drive and we arrived just after 7pm. Turns out it’s free after 9pm - but we will be able to pay with our FX card. Had they only taken cash, we would have had to move - as we haven’t got any Swiss Francs yet - and even if we get some out tomorrow - will only be notes!