The Rainy Day Option

Almost every week we go on a hike to some new place we can get to by train. Occasionally it has been on the weekend with our kids. More recently we have been going by ourselves during the week. Yesterday we had two possibilities, one for a rainy day and one for sunshine. Weather dictated the rainy day option.

We took the train to the third largest city in the French part of Switzerland. La Chaux-de-Fonds may not be well known outside of Switzerland but history and culture abounds in this high altitude city. It is the birthplace of Le Corbusier and Louis Chevrolet. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site for its watchmaking town planning. It has a beautiful gem of a Beaux-Arts museum and a phenomenal Musée International d'Horolgerie. It is just North of Lac Neuchâtel in the mountains separating Switzerland from France. We visited on the last day of August and it was cold, windy and rainy. The city is known  the Swiss Siberia for getting the most amount of snowfall in the country.

Planetary Clock

La-Chaux-de-Fonds owes its structure, looks, character and existence as a town to the watchmaking industry. Originally an agricultural village, it expanded in the late 18th century due to clock and watchmaking. The long, cold winters were perfect for indoor activity. The light from a low sun in a high altitude was a natural asset. The town took a cottage industry and made it into a manufacturing giant by building factories with large windows facing south.A devastating fire in 1794 forced a thoughtful reconstruction and a city grid mindful of optimum conditions of light for factories. Today, most major Swiss watchmaking brands manufacture all or part of their models in this area.

Traditional Watchmaker's Tool Bench

The Musée International d'Horlogerie has thousands of clocks and watches on display. From the most lavish Louis XIV clock to a watch so tiny it can fit on the head of a seed pearl, to original manufacturing equipment to the benches and tools of watchmakers from past centuries. It is a concrete building of four floors built underground. We barely grazed the surface of things to see there. It is a wonderful place to spend a rainy day.

Stone Sculpture at  Musée des Beaux-Arts

Next door to the Horolgerie is the Musée des Beaux-Arts. It is an art museum with a small but excellent collection of paintings from the last three centuries including modern art. It specializes in furniture and artwork, on paper and in cloth, of the Art Nouveau period. The entrance hall walls and floors are covered with stunning art nouveau mosaics.

Mosaic at the  Musée des Beaux-Arts

Le Corbusier's Maison Blanche

Maison Blanche, open to the public, is the first house which Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, later named Le Corbusier, built as an independent architect for his parents in 1912. For a young architect of 25 it shows an astonishing command of space and light. It is the cornerstone in the genesis of modernist ideas developed by the architect and makes for a fascinating visit. There are several other homes in the area designed by Le Corbusier that can be seen from outside.


Louis Chevrolet was also born in Chaux-de-Fonds, in 1878. We all know where he went to make his fortune. (My Dad owned Chevys his whole life and I like to think he would have enjoyed the fact that I visited his birthplace.) The city is very proud of him and holds a festival in his honor every year.

Even though we managed to squeeze in a delicious lunch at a traditional boulangerie, we were exhausted by the wealth of things to see. By the time we got back to the train for the journey home we were glad to sit and enjoy looking out the window.