Day 190: Watch-Making and Driving

Long day of driving today, but they're all going to be fairly busy days! We left our Airbnb fairly early again, though not quite as early today since I could move the car between a couple of different spaces and reset the timer. But we were on the road by 10, heading north-west into the hills towards the watch-making towns of La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle.

These are world heritage listed because the watch-making industry that Switzerland is so famous for, essentially got its start here. And after a devastating fire in 1794, the rebuilt town was entirely planned around the industry.

So all of the buildings are on the northern side of the valley, facing directly into the sun. They're all precisely east-west aligned to maximise sunlight, and not too tall to block light for the buildings behind. Watch-making requires copious light to do the intricate assembly and manufacturing, and so maximising natural light was very important. The streets were also very wide and straight, so that the huge amounts of snow in the winter can be easily cleared. It's interesting to think as well, that watch-making arose as a winter pastime, since the farmers needed something to do while their fields were snowed in.

But to be honest, aside from the visitor's centre with an interesting and detailed film, there just wasn't that much to see. We followed a suggested UNESCO route from the visitor's centre, but a lot of the buildings are just people's houses and offices these days. You can't go inside, and of course, there's traffic rumbling past constantly and people on the streets so it's not too easy to film either.

In the end we did what we could, grabbed some bread and cheese at a supermarket and ate our lunch in a park. We were probably there for less than 3 hours, oh well! We decided to skip on the sister watch-making town, even though that one is apparently a bit more picturesque.

Back in the car and driving south now, as we headed towards the city of Lausanne on the shores of Lake Geneva. The landscape got more rugged as we headed south, eventually finding some proper mountains, some with a little snow.

We were a bit ahead of schedule and couldn't check into the Airbnb until after 5pm, so we decided to drive on from Lausanne into Geneva, since it's only another 30 minutes. There's a UNESCO listed building there, part of the Buildings of Le Corbusier listing which we checked out. A large old apartment building from the 1920s which looked quite modern, though obviously we can't visit inside.

Parked in a separate car park and had a quick look at the foreshore of Lake Geneva. It was quite busy and touristy, with boats coming and going and an enormous water jet out in the lake shooting water 200 metres into the air. Wandered around the waterfront gardens for about 45 minutes, but soon decided we'd seen enough.

Back to the car where we drove the 30 minutes back to Lausanne and found our Airbnb. It's in the hills above the city, just a single bedroom in a large 4-bedroom duplex house (quite modern). Our room is large, probably originally the master bedroom, and other rooms are occupied by a Swiss student and an American student, while the owner lives in the fourth bedroom slash basement.

The owner was an older lady, originally Dutch but living in Switzerland for the last 40 years. She was also a former dachshund owner and fussed over Schnitzel quite a lot! We ducked down to the supermarket for more supplies. Had pizza for dinner and enjoyed the large house - the Swiss student was quite chatting, as was the owner. I ended up talking with her fairly late into the evening - she's done a fair bit of travel in her life as well which is interesting.Read more