If You Have Time in Switzerland, Make Time for These Watch Museums

From the moment I arrived in Geneva, the Swiss reputation for watchmaking became inescapable. Elegant signs for luxury watches greet the arriving travelers walking from their plane through the corridor to customs and baggage. Shops throughout the city offer temptations to purchase all kinds of watches from an elegant Rolex to a colorful Swatch. Trains arrive precisely on the scheduled minute displayed by the huge Mondaine clocks which hang prominently in all the train stations above the train platforms. And, a sightseeing tour of Geneva would be incomplete without a visit to the famous Horloge Fleurie, the flower clock made from some 6,500 colorful plants covering its 16-foot-wide surface. As this route through the Swiss watchmaking industry continued, I visited two magnificent museum collections.

When I entered the Patek Philippe Museum (www.patekmuseum.com), I immediately felt underdressed for the occasion in my casual jeans and orange fleece jacket. Also, my feeling toward the Seiko watch on my wrist would never be the same. The museum reminded me of the jeweler’s shop where you are seen by appointment only. The jeweler unlocks the door to let you enter and security quietly watches from a discrete distance. The same feels true at the Museum where it seems like a privilege to enter and security is nearby, but nothing is for sale. The contents housed here are priceless today.

On four elegant floors linked by a grand stairway, the museum displays large collections of Genevan, Swiss, and European horological art, enamels, music boxes, and portrait miniatures dating from the 16^th to 19^th centuries. Exhibits feature creations from Patek Philippe, one of Geneva’s more venerable watchmaking companies. The collection in the Patek Philippe Museum can only be described as jeweled masterpieces. As, I wandered around, I felt appreciation for the complicated innards of the watches, reverence for the intricate lifelike portrait miniatures, and amazement at the moving parts of the music boxes. Transfixed, I continued to return to one particular watch pendant. I was drawn hypnotically to see the delicate opal casement and enjoy the play of shimmering colors characteristic of my favorite stone, the opal. It was the one priceless piece that I will forever desire as my own. Photos are not permitted in the Museum so I have pictures to post to this blog. Let me simply say that this museum is worth seeing; and if you visit, dress a bit nicer than I did.

It is precisely a one-hour and fifty-seven minute train trip from Geneva to La Chaux-de-Fonds (www.chaux-de-fonds.ch), Switzerland’s highest city rising at 1,000 meters in the Jura Mountains. After Geneva and Lausanne, it is the third largest city in the French-speaking part of the country. During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, La Chaux-de-Fonds became the center of the Swiss watchmaking industry. Today, this city has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its horological culture and related town planning of intermingled housing and watchmaking workshops. The city is also home to the second museum worth taking time to visit. The International Museum of Watch Making, with a local name the Musée International d’Horlogerie (www.mih.ch ), is a showcase for the history of timekeeping arts. The museum houses over 4,500 exhibits, including 2,700 watches and 700 wall clocks. It is considered to be among the most comprehensive watch and clock museums in the world.

The unusual assortment of clocks impressed me the most about the International Museum of Watch Making. Each design tested the limits of imagination and innovation. Clocks not only give the hour, but tracked astrological positions of stars. A sundial when reaching a certain hour fired miniature cannon. Ornate mantel clocks held cameos and golden sculptures of cranes. Smaller watches of gold and encased with jewels were once a wealthy person’s proud possession of artistic perfection. And, outside the chiming of a 20^th century carillon clock made me wonder about the marvelous mechanical innovations to come in Swiss watchmaking.

Photography is permitted in this Museum without use of a flash. So, here’s a sample of the numerous treasures I captures during my visit.

Patek Philippe Museum

7 rue des Vieux-Grenadines

Plainpalais

Geneva, Switzerland

Musée International d’Horlogerie

Rue des Musëes 29

La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland

USA to Switzerland

Let’s step back a moment to a day in October 2009 when an email popped into my mailbox. The message invited me to consider a position with UNICEF in Geneva, Switzerland. Apparently, the resume I had submitted six months earlier finally grabbed someone’s attention.

I read the job description attached to the email in disbelief. The qualifications described my career skills – a 100% match! Ed and my son Chris also read the job description. Ed shouted, “SOLD!” And, Chris warned me, “Mom, if you apply, you are going to be going to Switzerland. You match this job perfectly. Go for it!”

Three days before the November application deadline, I hit send. A current resume and updated cover letter launched into cyberspace. And then, I waited and waited. No, news came for four months.

The next email hit my box in February, 2010. Could I participate in a teleconference interview? Yes. Two weeks later, another email arrived. Can you come to Geneva? I countered with the idea of a teleconference. After all, I had commitments in the USA.

“Teleconference?” HR hesitated. “Ok, agreed!” No trip to Geneva, a teleconference would suffice. There’d be no jaunt to Europe. Technology served me well with visual clarity and minimal vocal delay. The interview discussion convinced me this was a good fit. Only one “opps” occurred. As I gestured my hand with enthusiasm, I bumped my pearl earring. The earring went skidding across the conference table like a puck on an air hockey table. The interviewers didn’t notice and I just kept on talking. Days later, a third phone call covered a few more points for clarity. And then, I waited and waited.

The official offer to join the UNICEF Private Fundraising and Partnership team in Geneva happened the day before my sorority reunion in April 2010. I was home in Greensburg for the reunion so I broke the news in person to my family. Mixed reactions of pride, hesitancy, and the reality that I’d be leaving the USA hit my family. By contrast, my sorority sisters squealed with happiness for me. Just as in our years at PITT, my Alpha Delta Pi sisters celebrated my joy with hugs, encouragement, and a celebratory toast! A day later, Ed met me at the Kansas City Airport with a bouquet of balloons! We were on our way to a new life experience.

When this excitement happened, we were in Independence, Missouri, a place with historic connections to the United Nations, my new global employer. Ceremoniously, I visited the UN Peace Plaza. The statuette mimicked my joy. Ed took photos of me standing where is estimated Switzerland to be located on the world mosaic in the plaza of the Temple of the Community of Christ. This was meant to happen to me as if the story was being written with a transitional beginning and end. Ed and I started our RV road trip on Independence Day 2007; now our road trip would end in Independence, Missouri. What a perfect beginning and perfect ending.

“We’d like to in Geneva before the end of the summer,” I heard my new boss say over the phone. In June, I signed the UNICEF contract agreeing to serve two years with UNICEF as a Global Fundraising Specialist focused on Major Donors. I took two months to whittle down my already sparse possessions to even less than when we compressed things from our Texas home to six trunks stacked in Mom’s basement. With three suitcases each, Ed and I boarded an August Continental flight which brought us to Switzerland.