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 Museum of Art and History, Neuchâtel
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For such a small town, Neuchâtel's
Art and History Museum
(Musée d'Art et d'Histoire) is surprising good.
The historical section contains a wide assortment of artifacts of
everyday life of Neuchâtel's past including textiles,
toys, uniforms, swords, armour, medals, coins, watches, furniture,
medical instruments, mechanical birds in a cage, porcelain, glassware,
18th century robots, and much more. The fine arts section boasts collections
of Neuchâtel, Swiss and French art including some French
impressionist paintings.
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on the Art and History Museum 
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In the Museum of Natural
History (Musée d'Histoire Naturelle) Swiss mammals
and birds sit, stand or fly stiff and stuffed and placed in natural
settings in display cases. A vivarian contains fish, reptiles, small
rodents and batrachians. Some large dinosaur fossils are on display
as is the skeleton of a whale suspended by cables above you as you
sit at your table in the museum café sipping your coffee. Quite
good temporary exhibits pass through the museum regularly. Interesting
museum for both kids and adults.
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Information on the Museum of Natural History
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 Whale skeleton above cafe tables
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 Artifact in Ethnography Museum, Neuchâtel
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The Ethnography Museum's
(Musée d'Ethnographie) permanent displays include
artifacts from the time of the pharaohs, South Seas and African collections,
and Kingdom of Bhutan. Temporary exhibits of one sort or
another make their way to the museum every year, and are sometimes
quite interesting.
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on the Ethnography Museum
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Thousands of years ago Stone
Age man lived in wood houses built on stilts on the shore of Lake
Neuchâtel. Artifacts of this prehistoric culture and a reconstruction
of a lake dwelling are found in the new Latenium
Park and Archaeology Museum (Laténium, parc et
Musée d'Archéology) on the lake shore of the town
of Hauterive at Avenue Du Peyrou 7, ten minutes drive from downtown
Neuchâtel.
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on the Latenium Park and Archaeology Museum
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Stone age lake-dwellers stilt house reconstruction |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Salle Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a citizen of Geneva, lived
from 1712 to 1788. His many controversial books earned him popularity
among many, but also anger from government and religious authorities.
As a result he was sometimes 'on the run.' One of the places he
ran to was Môtiers a little village in the Travers
Valley in present day Switzerland where he lived for
about three years. He would have lived longer in this small, quiet,
idyllic village if he had not been, more or less, chased out of
town.
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on the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Museum
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