Despite the fact that mechanical watches are relatively imprecise and cannot rival even the cheapest quartz or digital watches for accuracy, the last few years have been a boom time for the Swiss, with one record-setting year after another. And while mechanical watches represent only about one percent of all timepieces sold, the sales of Swiss watches total more than eight billion dollars annually. As a result, almost every watch factory in the Jura has expanded, is expanding, or is expanding again.

Interestingly, watchmaking itself, and the technology behind it, is ancient and not far removed from the days when farmers worked by candlelight. The last truly great advance in mechanical watchmaking was the tourbillion movement, which radically improved accuracy - and it was introduced in 1801. Since then, almost all innovation has revolved around scale, with the goal being to shrink watches, and watchmakers compete for respect by making their best watches thinner and smaller.

The place to start a watch tour is Geneva itself, a charming city that is the bastion of French Switzerland and home to the watch museums of two top companies, Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin.

The Patek Philippe Museum, right in downtown, features some 2,000 pieces of timekeeping history spread across three floors and dating as far back as the sixteenth century. There are plenty of examples of the company's work since its inception in 1839, but also a large collection of important historical watches and mechanical devices from other manufacturers, illustrating the evolution of the mechanical-watch movement. While Patek's factory outside the city is not open for public tours, visitors to the museum can observe a watchmaker restoring antique watches in a glass-enclosed workshop. This is a good grounding for a visit to an actual factory. Once a week, guided­ tours are offered through the museum, and less frequently, the staff leads watch-history walking tours of the city.