Many of the world’s most inventive, expensive and best-known watches are made in factories in Switzerland, where the view that watchmakers see when they raise their eyes from their workbenches is likely to be cows grazing on the slopes of snow-capped mountains.
It’s the Vallée de Joux, home to factories or offices for Audemars Piguet, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Blancpain, Breguet, Patek Philippe and Bulgari’s watch division — as well as the companies that supply their parts, including La Pierrette for rubies and CHH Microtechnique for everything from screws to shock absorbers.
Some 7,000 people work on watches here, many of them in facilities along a roughly three-kilometer (1.9-mile) stretch between the towns of Le Brassus and Le Sentier.
So come the end of the workweek, where do they go to just talk, or blow off steam?
At 11:45 a.m. on a recent Friday, Chez Lily in Le Brassus was bustling; by 12:30, its 12 wood tables, each bearing a little anthurium in a pot, were ringed by workers, most from Audemars Piguet, a short walk up the hill, and CHH Microtechnique, a short walk down.
Was it the daily special (filets of perch in a citrus sauce, with fries; 19 Swiss francs, or $21) that drew them, or the sense of camaraderie? People entered the small cafe in much the same way they would a company canteen, nodding to one another in recognition.
