At the southern tip of Lake Neuchâtel, just east of Yverdon-les-Bains, the shore curves into a shallow bay fringed with reeds, poplars and a beach where local families swim in summer. Behind it, in a meadow, stands a double row of tall grey stones. These are the menhirs of Clendy, raised by Neolithic farmers more than five thousand years ago and re-erected in the twentieth century after they were found toppled in the ground. Offshore and along the bay lie the remains of lakeside settlements of the same era, part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
The lake level was lowered in the nineteenth century during the great Jura water correction, which exposed many of these old villages and made Lake Neuchâtel one of the cradles of pile-dwelling archaeology. Today the bay is a gentle place of walkers, dogs and birdwatchers, and the reedbeds of the southern shore, the Grande Cariçaie, form one of the largest lakeside wetlands in Switzerland, alive with herons, grebes and reed warblers. On a calm evening the lake turns silver and the Jura ridge darkens behind it.
Yverdon is a spa town with thermal baths that have been used since Roman times, a castle in the centre and a link to the educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who ran a famous school here. Just up the shore, the castle of Grandson looks over the lake; it was near here in 1476 that the Swiss Confederates defeated Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, capturing his treasure and his pride.
The riding in this corner of Switzerland is varied. The lakeshore roads are easy and scenic, while the Jura rises steeply to the west with excellent climbs towards Sainte-Croix and the plateaus beyond, through forests and wide pastures with stone walls. Expect Swiss speed limits and strict enforcement, as well as the motorway vignette requirement. Yverdon has plenty of fuel stations, restaurants and cafés. Try a plate of perch fillets from the lake with fries and tartare sauce, or in colder months a vacherin Mont-d'Or, a soft cheese from the Jura baked in its own wooden box.