May 26
Saignelégier to St-Imier 17.5 km

The French cantons in Switzerland are known for agriculture, which seems primarily to be dairy, and watchmaking. Yesterday walking into St-Imier Bennett and I peered into a high tech lab, speculating about what they were studying with all the clean rooms and microscopes. It was a watch factory–something stunning in an era of throwaway digital chips. We needed to divide the distance to Neufchatel into two days which gave us a short day into St-Imire, which including sitting on the square for a late lunch, living at the right pace. This area does not have spectacular beauty– no rugged alps in the distance just yet, but meadows full of wildflowers, cattle, horses and rimmed with old growth forest has its own overwhelming beauty. It is a place to walk.