Yesterday, I was invited by IWC to visit it’s legendary factory in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. On this occasion, 9 customers of Lyppens Amsterdam, huge IWC fans joined me. We departed Amsterdam around 7 am and arrived in Zürich around 8.30 am. From there, we travelled by car to the IWC Factory Schaffhausen.
After a warm welcome by the host and our guide for the day, we had a grand tour through the factory and had an amazing inside look, astonishing the devotion and skills of the craftsmen at
work. We were thrilled by the appearance of the legendary Kurt Klaus, it was really an honour to meet him in his hometown and work space where he created the infamous Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar movement. At noon we had lunch at an amazing restaurant located literally in the water of the Rhine river, with a spectacular view of the biggest waterfall of Europe Schlossi Wurth.
After lunch we were transported by boat to the heart of the waterfall, and we were able to climb the rock in the middle of the thundering waterfall.
When we all dried up and recovered from the spectacle, we visited the test laboratory of IWC. One of the visitors wanted to test the accuracy of his watch and of course it withstand the test.
The new IWC museum opened up in June of last year and looks amazing. Not only is a huge selection of milestone pocket and wrist watches on display, it also has beautiful movies and a rotating wall with the history of the company and its collections.
After seeing the history we had the opportunity to view the new collections, also a spectacular Limited Edition Portuguese Regulateur Tourbillon watch. Amazing to see the completely see-through tourbillon on full effect.
After seeing and trying on all the marvelous timepieces, we all got a bag of IWC-goodies (!) had a light dinner and went back to Zürich airport to catch our flight back to Amsterdam. A perfect day and I’d like to thank Lyppens for making this trip happen.
greetings
Bas Dekkers
