Moutier: Culture, River Landscapes and the Jura

Looking for a hotel in Moutier? This Swiss municipality in the Canton of Jura forms its own district. It lies at around 535 m above sea level and about 10 km as the crow flies south of Delémont. Sacred art, industrial history and the landscape along the Birs offer different ways to shape your stay, from museums and churches to dinosaur footprints, gorges and Jura high pastures.

Art, Churches and Industrial History

The Chapelle de Chalière features Carolingian frescoes. The Collégiale St-Germain has stained-glass windows by Coghuf and Voirol, while the Eglise Notre-Dame de la Prévôté features stained-glass windows by Manessier. These three buildings bring together different works of sacred art associated with Moutier and offer several specific names and motifs for a cultural focus.

The Musée jurassien des Arts de Moutier presents changing exhibitions featuring artists from the Jura region, other parts of Switzerland and abroad. It currently holds more than 8,000 works dating from the 1950s to the present day. The Musée du Tour Automatique offers a different focus: its more than 50 automatic lathes trace the history of the automatic lathe from 1872 to today. Changing art exhibitions thus sit alongside a collection that makes technological development over a long period easy to follow.

Associated with the Musée du Tour Automatique is a villa built in 1895 that belonged to Nicolas Junker. Junker founded Moutier’s automatic-lathe industry. The villa, its connection to the museum and the machines offer different reference points for local industrial history: a building, a key figure and the development of technology.

Guided walking tours explore two other themes. You can choose between Sur les traces de St-Germain and a tour of the industrial buildings dating from around 1900. Both tours must be booked in advance.

Dinosaur Footprints and a Viewpoint

Numerous large sauropod footprints were discovered at the Côte Picard site in the municipality of Moutier. Experts definitively identified them as such in 2019. At the entrance to the site, a wooden platform gives visitors a direct view of the rock face bearing the dinosaur tracks. Check the site’s current condition before visiting.

The Pavillon des Golats is a viewpoint above Moutier. You can reach it from Place du Stand via the Parcours Vita. The two sites offer different points of interest: Côte Picard draws your attention to the tracks in the rock face, while the pavilion offers views from above the town.

The Valley Basin and the Birs

Moutier lies in the Moutier valley basin, also known as the Grand Val. The municipality extends along both sides of the Birs, upstream from the confluence with the Raus stream, and onto the adjacent slopes. The Birs flows through the Grand Val from south to north, cutting across the Jura’s ridge structure. Above and below Moutier, it forms significant gorges.

North of Moutier lie the Gorges de Moutier, a typical Jura cluse with impressive limestone cliffs. Here, the Birs cuts through the Mont Raimeux anticline. This setting vividly illustrates the connection between the river and Jura geology: the gorge cuts through the Jura ridges, while the valley basin extends along both sides of the river.

To the northwest, the municipality extends onto the Montagne de Moutier. At Les Clos, it reaches up to 1,170 m above sea level. Several sinkholes dot the area, and extensive Jura high pastures with towering spruces, standing alone or in groups, shape the landscape. The change in elevation between the valley basin at around 535 m and the high pastures offers a different perspective on the municipality from the gorges along the Birs.

Nature and Travel Planning

The Sentier Nature showcases characteristic plants and animals in their natural habitats, including woodland edges, a pond, forest, a stream and pasture. These different habitats give the nature theme its own breadth, from water to woodland and pasture.

Moutier is also a railway junction on the Basel–Geneva route. Its event calendar includes the Fête de la Vieille Ville, held every two years and alternating with the Braderie prévôtoise. If you would like to plan your trip around one of the festivals, check the dates in advance. This lets you take both the cultural highlights and the changing event calendar into account when choosing your travel dates.

For the broader travel overview: Bernese Jura.