Holiday visit - Watch Valley
Discussion
Evening All,
Whilst skiing in the Alps last week, I decided to head off and being near, visit Le Vallee de Joux, also known as Watch Valley.
Being pretty close to Geneva in the Jura Alps, its beautiful (more snow than in Les Gets!) but it also houses many of the well known brands including Jaeger-LeCoultre, Audemars Piguets, smaller houses and mechanism manufacturers such as Frederic Piguet. For me, this was as good as it gets!
I tried to see the museums at the manufacturers but apparently you need to pre-arrange (or have more persausive powers than I) but seeing the factories was an eye opener. These are no small companies making a few treasured timepieces; they are massive organisations producing watches in their tens of thousands. They're still mighty impressive, but also a little dissapointing (realising the mass produced nature of 'premium' brands). You have to admire the business acumen and investment required to build empires like these, especially AP which is family owned.
The village of Le Sentier (JLC) also house an old watch museum which although is very old fashioned, offers a great view into the valleys watchmaking history from original clocks through to JLC's, Orient and AP's from the 80's. Some of the JLC movements are worth the entry alone (I think 8 Euro's).
There are also technical colleges and schooling for horology in Le Sentier and Le Brassus, even watch courses for anyoine to rebuild their watches!
The local restaurant in Le Sentier (opposite the JLC factory) was great, offering a similar experience to Il Cavalino in Maranello (only with better food!).
All in, a great visit and one I will make again.
Whilst skiing in the Alps last week, I decided to head off and being near, visit Le Vallee de Joux, also known as Watch Valley.
Being pretty close to Geneva in the Jura Alps, its beautiful (more snow than in Les Gets!) but it also houses many of the well known brands including Jaeger-LeCoultre, Audemars Piguets, smaller houses and mechanism manufacturers such as Frederic Piguet. For me, this was as good as it gets!
I tried to see the museums at the manufacturers but apparently you need to pre-arrange (or have more persausive powers than I) but seeing the factories was an eye opener. These are no small companies making a few treasured timepieces; they are massive organisations producing watches in their tens of thousands. They're still mighty impressive, but also a little dissapointing (realising the mass produced nature of 'premium' brands). You have to admire the business acumen and investment required to build empires like these, especially AP which is family owned.
The village of Le Sentier (JLC) also house an old watch museum which although is very old fashioned, offers a great view into the valleys watchmaking history from original clocks through to JLC's, Orient and AP's from the 80's. Some of the JLC movements are worth the entry alone (I think 8 Euro's).
There are also technical colleges and schooling for horology in Le Sentier and Le Brassus, even watch courses for anyoine to rebuild their watches!
The local restaurant in Le Sentier (opposite the JLC factory) was great, offering a similar experience to Il Cavalino in Maranello (only with better food!).
All in, a great visit and one I will make again.
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