bcsa

Would like to ask your opinions on whether to stop for the night in Solothurn or in Biel while driving from the French Alps to the Alsace area of France. We'd like to stay in a town that is not too far from the highway and has a nice area for walking around and dinner. Any suggestions for accommodations. Are there any other ideas of other places to stop for the night? Thank you in advance for your input.

kanadajin

I would highly recommend Aarberg, very close to the autoroute. A very charming Swiss small town with a very old all wood bridge. Quintessentially swiss-charming. Stayed at hotel Krone right on the main town square and really enjoyed it (very quiet at night). Many restaurants right on the square or nearby. A few minutes to Biel by driving on the autoroute.

mokka4

I stayed for 7 nights last fall in Solothurn and loved it. Smaller, cuter town than Biel/Bienne. Click on my name to read my TR.

neckervd

Tons of possibilities:

La Neuveville is a charming medieval city
https://www.google.ch/search?q=la++n...w=1280&bih=615
Hotel directly on the shore of Lake Biel/Bienne with tons of small walks in the vineyards or along the lake:
http://www.jjrousseau.ch/index.php?id=243

Murten is a well known small almost entirely walled medieval city
http://www.murtentourismus.ch/en/Reg...-in-brief.html
Lake shore hotel: http://www.hotel-bad-muntelier.ch/e/beach.php

St. Peter's Island in Lake Biel/Bienne:
http://www.st-petersinsel.ch/fr/bienvenue.html

Mount Weissenstein above Solothurn:
http://www.huettenzauber.ch/en/kurha...othurn/welcome
http://www.solothurn-city.ch/en/home.html

Isolated hotel along the Aar river (Hotel zum Gruenen Aff/Green Monkey) at Altreu:
http://www.solothurn-city.ch/en/disc...treu.5138.html
http://www.zumgrueneaff.ch/index.php/kueche-keller

The small medieval cities of Aarberg and Bueren an der Aare are fine too.

WeisserTee

Perhaps I'm in a minority, but I never really liked Biel. Have been there a few times and it's generated nothing more than a mehhhh response. I like Solothurn a lot better, it's one of my favorite non-Alpine places in the country (next to Basel, where I live).

However, Solothurn is not a lakeside town. If that's important to you and you're only staying one night, then I agree with the Murten rec. Although, FWIW, I think Solothurn has better restaurants.

neckervd

"Perhaps I'm in a minority, but I never really liked Biel"
The real plus of Biel/Bienne is the bilinguism. But not French and Swiss German speaking people cannot enjoy that.
Therefore I didn't even mention Biel/Bienne in my post, but the medieval city of La Neuveville / Neuenstadt with it's lovely lake shore hotel as well as the former monastery at St. Petersinsel (although their cuisine is nothing to write home about).
Gourmets would rather go to Neuchâtel (Palais du Peyrou, Le Prussien, Le Palafitte, Le Bocca), Murten, Aarberg, Wengi bei Bueren, Solothurn (La Tour Rouge) Attishoz Bad, Haegendorf (Lampart), but bcsa didn't ask for that.

bcsa

Your input is FANTASTIC! Thanks so much!

WeisserTee

"The real plus of Biel/Bienne is the bilinguism. But not French and Swiss German speaking people cannot enjoy that."

There are other, more attractive (IMO) places like Gstaad where one can do that. Actually, I don't have to travel at all to enjoy a multilingual environment. At our weekly team meetings, the conversations bounce back and forth in French, German, Swiss German and English (with occasional asides in Hindu, Italian and Spanish).

neckervd

OK, but where else than at Biel/Bienne can you hear sentences like:
As-tu vu le Voegeli sur le Birliboum qui chante comme ça schoen?
La Muetter est allé chez le Beck acheter des Weggli pour le Dimanche z'morge.
Le Vater a fouetté le Chatz avec un Staecke.
D'Horlogerie is gaeng es guet's métier g'si, vor auäm d'réglage.
and all that in the streets with their bilingual name plates!

And if you enter a shop the shopkeeper asks you: was wünscht der Monsieur vous désirez?

WeisserTee

You can hear similar in Basel from time to time. And one of the favorite local expressions is je ne weiss pas.

As for a multi-language everyday life, you do know that Basel has the world's only city transit system spanning three countries, don't you?

(FWIW, anyone who's visited or lived in Brussels can tell you that bilingual street signs are merely ordinary, not exceptional.)

neckervd

The fact that you can go by tramway from Leymen (France) through the Cantons of Solothurn, Baselland and Baselstadt to Friedlingen and Weil am Rhein in Germany has not much to do with multi-linguism as the languages in all these areas are Alemanic dialects.
But there is no doubt that many Alsaciens working during the day at Basle have their created own "language" (und no d'Ggümülüss Card, s'il vous plaît).
There is no doubt that there are tons of more or less bilingual towns around the world, like Bolzano/Bozen, Gorizia, Trieste, Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Letzeburg, Saranda, Gostivar, Sebastopol, Barcelona, Donostia, Antep, Samedan......
but it seems to me that in this thread, we just compared Biel/Bienne with Solothurn.