Yverdon

Yverdon stands at the southern end of Lake Neuchâtel. The Roman settlement of Eburodunum guarded routes linking the Rhône and Rhine basins, and its sulphur springs were used for bathing. In the thirteenth century Peter II of Savoy founded a new walled town with a castle near the lake, replacing the older settlement that had grown away from the water as the shoreline receded.

Bern conquered Yverdon in 1536, and its bailiffs took up residence in the castle. The town prospered in the eighteenth century: a new bath was built after 1728, and the Yverdon Encyclopaedia appeared in 58 volumes between 1770 and 1780. Bernese rule ended in 1798. A few years later the town entrusted the castle to the educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi for his institute.