A Day on the Swiss Frontier in the Canton of Jura

The Republic and Canton of Jura

In the wake of last week’s landmark and heavily supported decision to realign Cantonal borders and fundamentally put a stop to a centuries long Swiss political conflict, it seems only fitting that we make a trip to Switzerland’s youngest canton, the Republic and Canton of Jura.

The majority of Jura was carved out of the Canton of Bern in the late 1970’s and, honestly, it could be a world away from the rest of Switzerland. Jura forgoes the prim and proper Swiss aesthetic for a rougher vibe that has, in part, helped the region earn the moniker of ‘the Swiss Frontier.’

Had we not been visiting every Swiss Canton, I can’t say that I would have ever thought to visit this far western corner of Switzerland. Tucked within and just beyond the Jura Mountains along the Swiss border with France, French-speaking Jura is really quite isolated. It is not really possible to just stumble into, but I am exceptionally glad that we made the effort.

Jura offers a countryside like almost no other in Switzerland. In one day we found steep gorges, wild forests, quaint towns, excellent historical sites, and we only scratched the surface of what this Canton has to offer. The number of walks and excursions we had to choose from was mind boggling and we are almost certain to be back in the near future.

Today, we share our recent visit to Porrentruy and Saint-Ursanne. Just a taste of what the Canton of Jura has to offer.

Thanks for joining us!

A Journey to the Swiss Frontier

Jura has always been culturally isolated from the rest of Switzerland. It’s primarily a matter of physical geography and historical borders. Switzerland’s long western border with France runs on the far side of the Jura Mountains and these steep slopes and deep gorges physically separate the Canton of Jura from the Swiss plateau and the rest of the country.

The journey from the Berner Oberland to Porrentury, deep in the Canton of Jura, takes almost as long as getting to Eastern Switzerland clear on the other side of the country from the Berner Oberland. Leaving the Berner Oberland we switched trains in Bern then headed straight to Moutier (the newest part of the Canton of Jura as of last week). From Moutier we switched trains again and headed straight through the steep and rocky Moutier Gorge which cuts across the Jurassic and straight into the heart of Jura.

For a remote corner of Switzerland, quite a lot has happened here over the last millennia. Around the year 999, the King of Burgundy passed the area of today’s Canton of Jura over to the Bishop of Basel and, for the next 800 years, the lands operated as a sovereign state within the larger Holy Roman Empire. In the 17th Century, when Protestantism took over the city of Basel, the Bishop escaped to Porrentruy deeper into the still Catholic Bishopric, the lands administered by the Bishop who, at the time, served as both political and religious leader.

Following the Thirty Years War (1618 to 1648), Jura separated from the Holy Roman Empire and began to develop stronger ties with the Swiss Confederacy but it wasn’t until the start of the French Revolution in 1792 that any real changes began to materialize. The Bishop of Basel was this time chased out of Porrentruy and the Rauracian Republic, a puppet state of France, was formed in his place. A few years later in 1815, in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, the lands of the former Bishopric were officially incorporated into the Canton of Bern at the Congress of Vienna.

From the start, this arrangement was pretty contentious. While officially bilingual, French speakers made up a very small minority of the Bernese population. On top of that, the majority of Jura’s residents were still Roman Catholic while the Canton of Bern was firmly Protestant. The reason for this forced union fell mostly to politics.

Following the dissolution of the Helvetic Republic, which briefly saw Switzerland itself under the thumb of the French between 1798 and 1803, previously annexed portions of the Canton of Bern were divided to form the Cantons of Vaud and Aargau. In exchange for these perceived losses, the Congress of Vienna granted the adjacent lands of Jura to the Bernese as a sort of reparation.

With the added physical isolation, the French speaking Catholics on the far side of the Jura remained particularly underrepresented in Bernese politics. Following the Second World War, this simmering discontent began to boil over and a separatist movement was formed.

Without diving into the nitty gritty details, by the 1970’s a series of violent and non-violent calls for independence were finally answered by referendum. In 1977 a constitution was drafted and, in 1978, 82.3% of Swiss voted in favor of an independent Jura.

Unfortunately, that didn’t fully solve the problem. Several French speaking protestant communities on the Bernese side of the Jura Mountains narrowly opted to remain in the Canton of Bern and Laufen, initially interested in remaining within the Canton of Bern, decided to join the half-Canton of Basel-Land.

With portions of the Jura still held within Bernese territory, the pollical unrest and violence continued (including the nefarious theft of our very own Unspunnenstein).

Lovely flowers in Porrentruy deep in the heart of Jura

Bishop to A3

Arriving in Porrentruy, we headed straight for the prominent castle on the hill above the town, the former home of the Bishop of Basel, Chateau de Porrentruy. The castle complex itself actually dates back several hundred years before the Bishop took over the lands of the Ajoie around the turn of the millennia, but the earliest structure on the site today, the Refous Tower, dates to the 13th Century. Today, the tower remains open to the public and offers exceptional views of the town.

Looking up at Chateau Porrentruy

Many fires and renovations over the centuries have resulted in a mishmash of architectural styles at the site. The Medieval towers contrast with the 16th Century Residence and Chancellery built in a Renaissance style and the Baroque 18th Century Luppach House and Orangery.

Today the castle clings to the edge of the hill above Porrentury encircling a large central courtyard and the Refous Tower. At the base of the tower, a pile of heavily weathered limestone cannon balls (actually ammunition from a medieval trebuchet) were discovered during excavations on the site in 2017.

When the Bishop of Basel fled the castle at the end of the 18th Century, he took most of the castle’s archives with him but the complex remained in the civil service. On the far edge of the complex, the aptly named Tour du Coq, sporting the coat of arms of the Bishop of Basel and a cheeky looking chicken, still hosts the local jail and municipal offices.

Views in and from Chateau Porrentruy

Porrentruy's Tour du Coq

Back to the Jurassic

After watching a short video on the history of the castle in a former chapel on the downslope side of the complex (a French production with German subtitles) we made our way through the castle’s maze of corridors and staircases until we eventually found ourselves back at the bottom of the hill on the edge of the town center.

Porrentry has a charming old town with cobble stone streets and plenty to explore but we didn’t linger too long, only stopping briefly to admire a few of the more intricate buildings. Quickly crossing town, we made our way into the JURASSICA Gardens, Porrentruy’s botanic gardens.

One of the town gates to Porrentruy

Walking through the old town of Porrentruy

It’s no coincidence that the name Jura shows up in Jurassic, the geological period of the dinosaurs which extended from around 200 million to 145 million years ago. The limestone of the Jura Mountains was the first type example of this period.

Porrentury hosts an entire museum dedicated to the Jurassic called JURASSICA that we, unfortunately, did not have the time to explore. The gardens on the other hand are filled with beautiful plants and flowers nicely tucked behind the walls of Church of St. Pierre. The quite large church, worth checking out on the inside for its neat old frescos, was once another medieval bastion primarily constructed in the 14th century.

The botanical gardens in Porrentruy

Keeping in mind our larger plans for our day in Jura, we didn’t linger too long in Porrentury (though we likely could have spent the better part of the day exploring) and instead passed back through the old town to the train station for a short trip to Saint-Ursanne.

Views in and behind the Church of St. Pierre

Another Irishman Making His Mark

Saint-Ursanne is a charming medieval town in the bottom of the Doubs River valley, flanked on one side by the Doubs and on the other by steep vegetated walls of Jurassic limestone.

Arriving in Saint-Ursanne offers an excellent overview of the topography as the train station is built high on the slope above the town just below the entrance to the underground Mont-Terri Rock Laboratory. The lab is part of an international research project investigating the characteristics of the Opalinus clay formation for use in nuclear waste storage.

Looking up at the train station and rock testing lab from the Doubs

The main path to Saint-Ursanne from the train station takes you down a steep road directly to the old town center but we opted to take the scenic route. On the opposite end of the train station, a trail breaks off just before a large and picture-perfect stone Viaduct, the Viaduc de la Combe Maran, which carries the rail line over a small stream flowing into the Doubs, the Combe Chavat. Passing beneath the viaduct, the trail switchbacks down to the valley bottom linking up with the road before crossing the Doubs in front of the Maison du Tourisme.

Heading down the path past the viaduct

Across the river, we followed a path downstream for about a kilometer past a popular swimming area and revitalized natural area into the industrial outskirts of Saint-Ursanne that arose outside the town walls around the same time as the railway in 1877. After passing through a small neighborhood of workers houses, we arrived back on the riverbank in a small park just across the water from the old town walls.

A statue of Saint-Ursanne’s namesake, Ursicinus, stands guard in the park. I am not sure what it is with Irish monks befriending bears but, just like Gallus, the namesake of St. Gallen that we visited a few weeks back, Ursicinus is also depicted with a bear in tow.

Ursicinus and his bear across the river from Saint-Ursanne

Around 610 to 620, Ursicinus, like Gallus, a disciple of Columbanus in France, took up his retirement as a hermit in a small cave above the Doubs. The shepherds and hunters that eventually gathered around him (and possibly his bear?) are said to have formed the town of Saint Ursanne around 619. Shortly thereafter (or possibly before the town’s founding), Ursicinus died, and monks formed a monastery over his grave. Eventually the burgeoning monastery became an Abbey in the 11th century and ultimately a canonry subject to the Bishop of Basel in the early 13th century.

After relaxing on a shady bench in the park for a bit, cooling off from the sweltering heat, we crossed the nearby 18th century bridge across the Doubs and entered the town of Saint-Ursanne.

Trying Not to Melt in Saint-Ursanne

Passing through the town gates into St. Ursanne, we were faced with the massive Romanesque Abbey (now parish) church and an uncharacteristically busy town full of sporty race cars (the Swiss leg of the European Hill Climb Championship, St-Ursanne-Les Rangiers was in town the weekend of our visit).

While I am as intrigued by fast cars as the next guy, it was actually a bit of a blessing to head inside the heavy walled church to escape the roaring engines and overflowing testosterone. The inside of the church is more sparsely decorated than most catholic churches but still offers a beautiful interior and plenty to explore. A small crypt can be found below the altar and a side door off the nave leads into a nice cloister, or walled courtyard, that are both very much worth checking out.

The Abbey Church at Saint-Ursanne

In the cloister of the Abbey Church

From the church, we weaved our way through some covered walkways and back out of the town wall through the Porte St. Paul. A short walk uphill along the outside of the wall brought us to an open garage door and a smashed-out block wall that granted access to the start of the stairs to the Hermitage and Chapel of Saint-Ursanne (we did say that Jura was a bit rougher than other parts of Switzerland).

The path to the hermitage in Saint-Ursanne

About 200 or so steps past the garage (seemingly a temporary arrangement during construction work on the adjacent building) the chapel and supposed cave home of Ursicinus and his bear come into view.

While it’s a bit hard to imagine someone living in this tiny cave for the better part of 10 years (the statue of Ursicinus and his bear barely seems to fit), the views over St. Ursanne are worth the journey.

Looking over Saint-Ursanne from the hermitage on the hill

From the hermitage, it seems like you should be able to contour the slope passing through an open door in the old defensive wall, but it seems the path has long become overgrown. A higher and steeper trail takes you up to the remains of a ruined castle but, with the sun beating down on us and the temperatures already feeling unbearable, we opted instead to head back through the town to the train and its air conditioning.

It was a bit hard to picture the rest of the Saint-Ursanne old town without race cars but the surrounding landscape appears to be a veritable playground of hiking, biking, and paddling. Even as I write this, Jura is already calling me back and I don’t think it will be too long before our next trip.

We hope you enjoyed hearing about our visit to Jura. If you liked the trip, you may be interested in the other posts in our One Year: 26 Canton project! Stay tuned for additional articles on our Swiss travels every week!

Until next time, gute Reise, and feel free to leave a comment on one of our social media platforms!

Race cars lined up on the streets of Saint-Ursanne