Awesome trip to Switzerland/Tour of AP

[sirish19]

Hi All,

I wanted to share my experience from my recent trip to Switzerland with everyone and recommend if you have a chance to go, it is definitely a worthwhile trip for the WIS. I have a couple of additional threads on visiting Patek and AP but thought I would start a new one. This is extremely pic heavy so will post in several segments as I believe there is a limit to the number of pics I can post each time. This covers several days in Geneva, Zurich, back to Geneva, Le Brassus, and Le Locle.


Day 1 (Geneva):
I traveled from Paris to Geneva by train. That was a very pleasant ride in the morning. I would definitely recommend riding in first class. For not a lot more, you get breakfast and much more comfortable seats. It was also not crowded at all so I could move around the coach to get the best seat.

Did a little sightseeing around Geneva/Lake Geneva and could already tell this was going to be an exciting trip.

[sirish19]

Day 2 (Lake Lucerne):
The next day I had meetings near Zurich so rented a car in Geneva and drove to Lake Lucerne where I spent the night. Here are a couple of pics from my hotel room. If you have a chance, definitely take a drive around the lake. It is a very pleasant drive with a great view of the lake and a lot of quaint little villages.

[sirish19]

Day 3 & 4 (Zurich):
I had a couple of meetings in Zurich so spent a couple of days here.

[Submarino]

Very nice. Post the rest of the pics.

[sirish19]

Day 5 (back to Geneva):
My AD in Tokyo was able to get me an appointment to visit the Vacheron Constanin museum in Geneva so I drove back there for my appointment at 10 am. I had a very nice guide who walked me through the museum and explained everything. This was an interesting tour as it was by invitation only and I was the only person in there through the entire 1.5 hours. There were some very interesting and historic pieces there. I obviously had to wear my Patrimony for this visit.

[sirish19]

Next, I had planned to go to the Patek Philippe Museum but since it didn’t open until 2:00 pm on that day, I still had a couple of hours to kill so I went by the boutiques for AP, VC and Patek Philippe. I wore my AP Jumbo when I visited the AP boutique and the sales assistant said I was very lucky to have been able to get that piec.

Prior to visiting the Patek boutique, I had to switch watches and put on my 5146g Annual Calendar. Patek was very nice as I had expressed an interest in two relatively easy to get pieces, the blue faced Gondolo and blue Twenty-4 as I am considering getting as a pair with the wife to celebrate an anniversary. He took me upstairs to the showing room, brought me an espresso and showed me a number of pieces. I even got to see a few I have not yet seen in the metal.

[sirish19]

We talked about the popularity of the Nautilus and Aquanaut and he said that they want to encourage customers to try to get those at their local AD’s. In the end, I mentioned that I was planning to visit the Patek Museum and he gave me a VIP pass for free entry. If you plan on going to the museum, I would definitely recommend going by the boutique to look at some pieces and get a VIP pass.

Next, I went to the Patek Museum. In contrast to VC, it was a huge museum with a lot of very interesting things to see (not all Patek by the way), but an amazing collection hand-painted watches. They didn’t allow you to take photos inside and had security hovering all the time. I opted not to get a guided tour as they were going to charge 200 francs for the guide. There was another group having a tour at about the same time so I listened in a little.

[sirish19]

I spent a couple of hours in the Patek Museum, could have stayed a lot longer but had to drive to Neuchatel for a dinner with the AP tour group.

As this was a sudden trip, I wasn’t able to join the full 2-day tour but I was able to get invited to the dinner on the first night and the full tour on the 2nd day. I drove back to Neuchatel and stayed at the Best Western Beualac (which was really nice, and right on the water). The tour group was staying at a different hotel which was already fully booked by the time I was making reservations. AP is still doing construction of their new hotel in Le Brassus so they have you stay in Neuchatel which is about an hour or so drive away.


Day 6 (Le Brassus):
The next morning, we drove up to Le Brassus to start the tour. They put up an American flag in honor of our visit (there was another group from UK so there was the British flag as well). We began meeting our tour guide and having coffee in the Museum.

[sirish19]

We went through the museum and got to see a lot of classic pieces, including my favorite, the original Jumbo.

[sirish19]

We next went to the restoration room where they restore a lot of very old pieces.

[sirish19]

They also showed us the locker where they keep all of the spare parts for the vintage pieces.

[sirish19]

Interestingly, we learned that, now, they no longer use the spare parts that they have (and risk running out of them for future use), rather, they use those old vintage parts as a template in order to manufacture new parts. Also, they said that during the quartz crisis, things go so bad that they were literally throwing these old parts in the garbage thinking that they would no longer have any use for mechanical watch parts. Some of these boxes were actually salvaged from the trash.

They even had some parts boxes for watches that were abandoned before they were ever produced and they found in the archive boxes that they had practically all of the parts to be able to create the watch that was never manufactured.

[sirish19]

Here he also showed us a number of old minute repeaters and also how they tune a minute repeater.

[sirish19]

And some very old, ultra-thin movements in pocket watches.

[sirish19]

Next, we went to a room where we saw an old desk used by the original founders for creating the watches and some original equipment. Also, they had a chart showing the family tree of Audemars and Piguet. They also had a map of Le Brassus showing the path to Geneva. Because the winters were so cold in that area, they couldn’t work on the farms so they had to take up activities that required patience, precision, and…time. So, they took up watchmaking. They said that they made a lot of movements in the beginning because they couldn’t afford gold or other precious materials for making the cases. They may make 3-4 watches during the winter and then walk to Geneva over several days (I thought the drive was long) in order to sell the movements

[sirish19]

Next, we took a break for lunch on our way to the manufacturing facility.

[sirish19]

After lunch, we finally went to the manufacturer (they don’t like to be called the “factory”). Unfortunately, they didn’t allow us to take photos inside but here are a few photos outside of the manufacturer.

[sirish19]

Here we saw them polishing the bezel and case, how they create the dials, printing the text on the dial, and making the grand complications. I even got to see them casing up the Jumbo like mine. It was truly amazing.

Next, we walked back to the HQ where we got to take a look at the entire current AP collection including some very hard to get pieces while sipping champagne and dreaming about being able to actually purchase some of these pieces.

[sirish19]

Finally, they gave us some parting gifts including a keychain, the current model catalog, and the definitive book on “High-end horological finishing and decoration” written by the master Giulio Papi.

[sirish19]

And, it was even signed and personalized by Giulio Papi himself.

[sirish19]

To top it all off, we actually had a chance to meet Olivier Audemars (who is actually a descendent of the Piaget family) outside of the HQ.

[sirish19]

Day 7 (Neuchatel & Le Locle)

Before heading back to Geneva in the evening the next day, I did a brief amount of sightseeing in Neuchatel and also made a visit to Le Locle to the Musée d'Horlogerie du Locle (as recommended by Conkers). This was also a very nice experience and I would definitely recommend doing it.

[sirish19]

Sorry, this turned out to be an extremely large post with a lot of photos. I hope that everyone enjoyed it. To really appreciate, you have to see it for yourself.

Cheers,

Stephen

[conkers]

Great write up glad you enjoyed. I assume you didn't get to APRP in Le Locle? Was probably too short notice I guess.

[OmegaJJH]

Wonderful write up Stephen. I really enjoyed that. Thank you ever so much for taking us along.

Great post!!


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[yoast]

Very nice, thanks for sharing!

[sirish19]

Originally Posted by conkers

Great write up glad you enjoyed. I assume you didn't get to APRP in Le Locle? Was probably too short notice I guess.

No, unfortunately, I missed that as it was short notice. The rest of the group did go though, and the host was gracious enough to pick up the autographed book for me.

Next time!!

[Vaxe]

Wow awesome post, thanks!

[jsg1976]

Sounds like an amazing trip! Thanks for sharing!


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[tyler1980]

Wow. My last trip to switzerland was nothing like that. Thats the way to do it

Looks like it was an amazing time