Roman Switzerland

Switzerland was Roman for four hundred years — the province of Helvetia, crossed by the routes over the Alpine passes — and rather more of it survives than most visitors realise.

Augusta Raurica

Twenty minutes east of Basel, and the most complete Roman site north of the Alps.

Founded around 44 BC, it was a working town of some 20,000 people. What survives is substantial: the theatre, seating around 8,000 and still used for performances, a forum, temples, an amphitheatre, baths, and a reconstructed Roman house furnished as it would have been, which does more to explain daily life than any display case.

The museum holds the Kaiseraugst silver treasure — 270 pieces of late Roman silver, some 58 kg of it, buried in the fourth century and dug up in 1962 by a schoolboy watching building work. It is one of the most important Roman silver hoards ever found.

Entry to the site itself is free; the museum charges. There is a Roman festival at the end of August with several hundred re-enactors, which is the best time to go.

Aventicum — Avenches

An hour from Bern, and once the capital of Roman Helvetia: a city of perhaps 20,000 with a five-kilometre wall, of which long stretches and a tower still stand.

The amphitheatre is largely intact, with a medieval tower built into it that now houses the museum. Single columns stand in fields around the modern village, which has about 4,000 inhabitants and sits inside a fraction of the Roman footprint.

The museum’s centrepiece is a gold bust of Marcus Aurelius, found in a drain in 1939 — one of very few Roman gold busts to survive anywhere.

The amphitheatre hosts an opera festival in July and a rock festival in September.

Nyon

Colonia Iulia Equestris, founded by Julius Caesar’s veterans around 45 BC. Three columns stand on the esplanade above the lake, and the Roman museum is built into the remains of the basilica under the square. See Nyon.

Martigny

At the foot of the Great St Bernard pass, and Roman Forum Claudii Vallensium. There is an amphitheatre, and the Fondation Pierre Gianadda — one of the better art museums in Switzerland — was built around the remains of a Celtic-Roman temple found on the site, with a Gallo-Roman museum in the basement.

Vindonissa

At Windisch near Baden, the only legionary fortress in Switzerland — a base for around 6,000 men from about AD 15. The amphitheatre survives, and the museum in Brugg holds the finds, including an unusual quantity of everyday material from the fort’s rubbish tips.

Getting to them

All five are reachable by train and a short walk or bus:

• Augusta Raurica — train to Kaiseraugst from Basel, 15 minutes
• Avenches — train from Bern or Fribourg, under an hour
• Nyon — 15 minutes from Geneva
• Martigny — on the main Valais line
• Vindonissa — train to Brugg, 30 minutes from Zurich

When to go

Summer, since most of these are open sites. The two festivals — Augusta Raurica in late August, Avenches in July — are the dates worth planning around.