The city is within easy reach of Geneva, Zurich, Basel, and Bern Airports with good rail and road connections. Neuchatel is also less than two hours by public transportation from airports in Geneva, Basel, Bern and Zurich. Boats on Lac de Neuchatel provide romantic and sometimes also very useful links. Visitors can enjoy beautiful views of the lake and the Swiss Alps from many transportation routes leading to Neuchatel. Neuchatel is mostly French-speaking but German is widely understood.
Good roads make driving to Neuchatel generally easy, especially from the south where the Autoroute A5 provides fast transportation from its intersection with the A1 near Yverdon-les-Bains. Klook gives easy online quotations but transfer services, even pre-booked shuttles are rather pricey.
Neuchatel has very good railway connections to the rest of Switzerland. Tickets must be bought before boarding any train in Switzerland, even if the ticket is bought on a smartphone. Online and station-bought tickets cost the same in Switzerland. Neuchatel is an important railway hub for regional trains in the Three Lakes Region with many trains running on the northern shores of Lake Neuchatel and Lake Biel, regional trains going into the Jura Mountains, to Murten Morat and Fribourg Freiburg , and many connections available to Bern.
However, Paris is still only four hours from Neuchatel — regional express trains or buses connect Neuchatel and Frasne with good connections to the Paris to Lausanne TGV trains. Paris to Neuchatel via Frasne currently takes just over four hours. This fast service is available three or four times per day with many further connections possible taking closer to five hours via Geneva or Basel.
Pleasure cruises on Lake Neuchatel are very popular with boats sailing from around mid-April to mid-October. A few boats are even available in winter.
