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How to spend a day in
Switzerland Occasionally friends who are planning to visit Switzerland contact me and ask where to go and what to see there. It's sometimes a bit difficult for me to recommend specific sites or hotels because I live there and rarely do things a typical tourist would want to experience. Well this weekend I for once was a tourist in my own country and I think my itenary would be quite nice for somebody who like me enjoys watches, great food and visiting beautiful areas. I had my trusty little Sony U-30 miniature digicam with me and documented my weekend trip to the western part of Switzerland .... I took the morning train from
Zurich down to Geneva where I was to meet up with a friend from the
USA to tour the Patek Philippe museum and then to go have dinner at
one of the best restaurants of the country. The three hour trip takes one
along the borders of Watchmaking County ....
... to the Patek museum which is a 20 minute stroll away from the main train station. The museum is an absolute MUST for any watchfan visiting Geneva. Patek really went the whole nine yards, their collection is presented beautifully and augemented with several very well produced movies which constantly run on flatscreens hanging on the wall. The museum has four floors, the top one houses a vast library on horology, the second floor is dedicated to non-Patek pieces (e.g. many significant Breguets) and the art of enamel, the first floor ist mostly Patek and on the ground floor there's a display on vintage watchmaker benches
For many Patek fans these are ultimate perpetuals. Wempe emulated this design in their 125th anniversary annual calendar made by Patek this year
I just can't put my finger on what these remind me of ....
When walking through the museum, it becomes very apparent how seamingly new designs have their roots in the past Messrs. Muller and Dubuis may have drawn some inspiration from these
AP's Millenary line apparently wasn't the first oval watch ...
I can't remember which company brought recently brought out a wrist watch which looked very similar to this one, Roger Dubuis perhaps?
I wish some company rep would visit the museum and be inspired to make a watch with a black guilloche dial like this (but leave away the diamonds of course)
Imagine you're informed that you inherited a Patek and it turns out to be this ...
Finally ... the Holy Grail ... Caliber 89, the most complicated pocket watch ever made.
Functions and displays comprise of hours, minutes, seconds, time in a second timezone, time for sunrise and sunset, equation of time, perpetual calendar with date, century, decade and year, weekdays, months, leap year indication, sun hand which shows the seasons, celestial chart, age of the moon, moon phase, date of easter, chronograph with split second mechanism, 30-minute chrono counter, 12 hour chrono counter, quarter hour repeater with carillon, half hour repeater with carillon, minute repetition, alarm, power reserve for time mechanism, power reserve for chiming mechanism, indicator for the position of the crown
The rest of the day was spent with non-horological matters ... The area around the Lake of Geneva belongs to the most beautiful of the country and many celebrities from the past and present like Charlie Chaplin or Audrey Hepburn have lived there. In fact the small canton (state) of Vaud, which borders on the lake, can claim 14 Formula 1 championships achieved by its inhabitants! Many of the best hotels and restaurants in Switzerland are located here so a visit to the Patek museum simply must be followed by a great meal. Montreux, eternalized in Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" is one of the towns along the lake.
Its setting is quite spectacular ...
We checked into the Hotel Victoria which is located on the hillside high above Montreux. It's a wonderfully old-fashioned place filled with a charming muddle of antiques, it would make just the perfect setting for an Agatha Christie novel ... It's run in the way hotels were run decades ago, the director comes out to greet you and bid you farewell, breakfast is still served, not taken buffet-style and when you return at night, you'll find your room tidied and your bed ready to hop in.
In the evening we headed over to the nearby "Le Pont de Brent" which is possibly the most unpretentious and cozy three Michelin star restaurant in the world. The atmosphere is very relaxed and friendly most of the male diners weren't even wearing a tie (and to think that I spent half an hour trying to get a decent knot into mine!). The food they serve is just bursting with flavor but completely lacks unnecessary decoration or foolish pairings of tastes. It would be kind of embarrassing to list all the dishes we had so I'll just limit myself to showing a few of the highlights. Hopefully those visiting the region will have the chance to sample this wonderful food themselves one day. A slice of "Omble", a local fish which has an incredible firm yet almost creamy consistency and was just very lightly cooked and served with small bits of leak and a few drops of olive oil
Sadly my bout with the lifestyle of the rich and famous is now over and it's back to sandwiches and Diet Coke for lunch again ... October 2003 |
