Rail route of the month: on the slow line through forests and meadows of the Swiss Jura

The man on the slow train through the Swiss Jura is eager to connect. When I mention that I've just arrived from Scotland, he leans forward and says, “I can understand how they feel up there. We had to fight for our independence from Bern. »

The Jura region's vote in favor of secession from the canton of Bern in 1978 may not seem like a big upheaval in the wider framework of European affairs, but questions of identity and autonomy are deeply rooted in the folded hills of the Swiss Jura. More than four decades later, the largely French-speaking Republic and Canton of Jura is still the youngest of the Swiss Confederation. But this chance encounter on the train reminds me that there was a time when the Jurassic question provoked heated debates and even riots. There isn't much talk about Free Jura in the hills these days, but there is still a palpable feeling that this region is a place apart, a twinned part of Switzerland with its own identity. distinctive.

Free travel for visitors

"We have our own way of doing things," says my travel companion. "We even have our own train operator." Les Chemins de fer du Jura is a company with strong local values ​​that offers bus and train services throughout the Jura. This is an area with excellent public transport, and the slow trains and bus services are the perfect way to enjoy the pace of life here. Even better, it might not cost a dime. There are free travel programs for visitors in many Swiss cantons, with particularly good arrangements in Ticino and Appenzell. In the Jura, the passport to travel freely is the Jura-Pass guest card, given to visitors by accommodation providers; it offers free transport on the entire public transport network of the Vagabond fare group (Moutier and Tramelan, as well as the Jura) and is valid from the time of arrival at your hotel until midnight on the day of departure (maximum 15 days).

I stayed in Glovelier, way up Some valley of the cantonal capital Delémont, my basic choice mediated by the nodal status of Glovelier in the transport network. It's a part of Switzerland made all the more accessible to rail travelers by the happy reopening in late 2018 of the long-defunct railway running south-east from the French town of Belfort to Switzerland. It is now possible to travel from Paris to Glovelier in just three hours 33 minutes, with an easy change at Belfort-Montbéliard, where the train for Switzerland departs from the upper platform above the TGV station.

Know the ground