Murten is the rare Swiss town where you can walk the medieval walls almost all the way round, looking down on brown tiled roofs on one side and the lake on the other. Its sailing harbour, the Segelboothafen, lies just below the old town on the shore of Lake Murten, and in the shallows here are the remains of prehistoric pile dwellings, one of the Swiss components of the transnational World Heritage Site of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. Nothing shows above the water, but the lakeshore has been a place to live for thousands of years.
Murten's most famous date is 1476. Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, besieged the town, and the Swiss Confederates came to its relief and crushed his army in a battle that ended Burgundian ambitions in the region. Legend has it that a runner carried the news to Fribourg, collapsing as he arrived with a linden twig in his hand; a modern race between the two towns commemorates it every autumn. The town is bilingual, Murten in German and Morat in French, and its arcaded main street is full of shops, cafés and restaurants.
Across the lake rises Mont Vully, a long, low hill covered with vineyards on its southern slope, which produces some of Switzerland's most pleasant white wines. On its summit are the remains of a Celtic oppidum, and the views over the three lakes of the region, Murten, Neuchâtel and Biel, are wide. The local speciality is the gâteau du Vully, a flat, sweet bread topped with cream and sugar, which goes very well with a glass of Chasselas.
The riding is relaxed. The roads around the lake and through the Vully are gentle, with vineyards and villages, and the Seeland to the north is flat farmland. For more excitement, the Jura is within an hour, with the climbs to the Chasseral or the Vue des Alpes. Swiss rules apply: low speed limits, strict enforcement and a vignette for motorways. The lake is popular with cyclists and walkers, so watch out on the narrow roads near the water.
Murten has fuel and all services. Park outside the walls, walk through the old town, climb the ramparts and end at the harbour, where a swim or a boat ride on the lake on a hot day washes off the road dust nicely.