La Chaux de Fonds I (Winter; HP5 & TMax 400)

Set at 1,000m of altitude in the backcountry of Neuchâtel, la Chaux de Fonds is one of the cradles of the Swiss watchmaking industry. When a fire wiped out most of the town in 1794, it was rebuilt as a plan city, following a strict pattern of long arrow straight parallel streets to accommodate the budding textile industry and soon thereafter, the watchmaking artisans of the surrounding rural homesteads who fueled the exponential industrial growth of the mid 1800s. To this day, the characteristic layout Karl Marx once described as a single giant manufacturing plant has been maintained, as has the very particular and little known charm of the only major city in Switzerland with a shrinking population.