Day: April 2, 2023

Le Locle

Today we spent the whole day exploring around Le Locle.

This rabbit is outside the Audemars Piguet watchmaking factory, one of many watch making factories in Le Locle.

We started our tour by driving to Champ du Moulin in Areuse Gorge. In Champ du Moulin we stopped for coffee.

The restaurant where we had coffee is on the left.
Having coffee

Then we drove to La Chaux-de-Fonds where we visited the Farmers and Craft museum. The museum is in an old farm house built in 1612.

Old farm house containing the Farmers and Craft museum.
The farm people and the animals lived on the ground floor and the barn was above.
You can see where they would pass the hay from the barn down to the animal mangers below.
There were two ladies doing a lace making demonstration.

We drove back to Le Locle, had some lunch and then went to Cave Mills “Col-des-Riches”, a subterranean mill built and first used in the seventeenth century. We had an audio guide and went down into the caves where the mills , waterwheels and workshops were. It was cold, wet and fascinating.

A model of the enormous underground mills.
Looking down into the caves
One of the underground water wheels.

For dinner we went to a crepe place a couple of blocks from where we were staying and had galettes. They were savory crepes.

Special Galette made with Gruyère, asparagus, pesto and zucchini.
Ham and cheese galette.