When is the shop open?

Daily from 9 am to 5 pm. The shop is closed from January until mid-March.

Do you ship the cuckoo clocks?

Yes. We ship worldwide — your clock from Passau's old town reaches your home carefully packed.

Where do I find the shop?

In the Baroque corner building at Residenzplatz 5, 94032 Passau, in the heart of the old town.

Can I choose the animal on the clock myself?

Yes. You choose the figure on the platform yourself — a dog, pig, sheep or cow.

Cuckoo Clocks · Passau

Cuckoo Clocks in Passau

Originals from the Black Forest, curated on Residenzplatz.

Look around

You won't have to carry a thing – we pack and ship worldwide.

In the shop, every major card is welcome – Visa, Mastercard, American Express.

IOn display

A small selection

A glance through the window – a few of the pieces standing inside right now. We keep three kinds: the hunting scene, carved with stags and oak leaves; the chalet, a house with figures that move – and the modern line: pared-back cases, contemporary designs.

Engraving on the larger models – the bigger the clock, the more room for it.

Carved stag's head with antlers crowning a dark-stained Black Forest hunting-style cuckoo clock, crossed rifles, oak leaves and acorns behind it — Hunting piece
Crossed rifles beneath the antlers

The white cuckoo with its orange beak standing in the open door of a Black Forest cuckoo clock, the carousel of dancing couples below — The cuckoo
In the doorway on the hour

Black Forest chalet cuckoo clock with a beer-garden scene: the landlady carrying steins, a man at the table, a dog and beer barrels in front of the dial — Chalet
A beer garden, the landlady carrying steins

Modern-line cuckoo clock: pale wooden frame, glass front, open brass movement and chains behind a plain grid — Modern line
Brass movement open behind glass

Three carved musician figures in traditional dress with tuba, guitar and accordion on the balcony of a Black Forest cuckoo clock — The band
Three musicians in traditional dress

Carved bear figures at a blue stream, one with a salmon in its mouth, beside the water wheel and dial of a Black Forest cuckoo clock — Bears at the creek
Bears at the creek, one with the fish

Carved huntsman figure in a green jacket with walking staff, binoculars and rifle on a Black Forest cuckoo clock — The huntsman
Hand-painted, binoculars and walking staff

Carved “Gasthaus zum Bären” inn sign above the Roman-numeral dial of a Black Forest cuckoo clock, dancing couples on the stage above it — Gasthaus zum Bären
A carved inn sign, dancers on the stage above

IIThe Craft

From the Black Forest into the World

Through the long winters of the 18th century, farmers on the Black Forest hill farms began building clocks from the wood outside their doors – wooden gears first, later fine brass. Within a few decades, whole valleys made their living that way.

A mechanical Black Forest cuckoo clock movement in brass and steel, held in two hands, with the wall of clocks in the InnResidenz vault in Passau behind. — Mechanical movement from the Black Forest, brass and steel

Why the Clock Looks Like a House

The familiar shape – the carved gable, the foliage – took hold around the middle of the 19th century. About 1850 the architect Friedrich Eisenlohr designed the so-called “Bahnhäusle”, a clock case modeled on the crossing keepers' huts along the young Baden railway. From that drawing came the shape that still stands for the Black Forest cuckoo clock the world over.

Over the Alps on Foot

The clocks went out into the world on foot: peddlers strapped the finished pieces to their backs and set out over the Alps, as far as Russia and England. Inside, a purely mechanical movement still does the work – weights on chains, the pendulum, two small pipes with bellows for the call on the hour. The classic cases are carved by hand.

Who Builds the Clocks Today

What hangs in Passau comes from the workshops that still keep the old craft alive – Hönes, Hekas and Rombach & Haas. Classic shapes – and, under the Romba label, a modern line most people would never take for a cuckoo clock.

The “Original Black Forest Cuckoo Clock” seal, issued by the Black Forest Clock Association (VdS), means a mechanical movement made in the Black Forest – not every cuckoo clock may carry it.

Two hands holding a rough, untreated block of wood, with the vaulted arch and the wall of clocks of the InnResidenz in Passau blurred behind. — Bellows of wood and paper

Tiny carved animals – dogs, cows, horses – on a weathered wooden board in window light. — Animal figures, a few centimetres tall

A pale, freshly carved stag's head held right beside the finished, dark-stained stag's head on a cuckoo clock. — The same stag's head, raw and stained

Today those clocks hang in a vaulted room on the Residenzplatz in Passau.

Inside the movement

Anatomy of a Cuckoo Clock

How does a cuckoo clock work? There is no battery in a Black Forest cuckoo clock – and an eight-day movement needs winding just once a week. The six parts in the cutaway drawing explain the rest.

Cuckoo clock dial with ivory Roman numerals, framed by carved foliage.

Tap a part – the clock answers

At the vault on Residenzplatz we will gladly show you all of this on a real clock.

Viktor in his vaulted shop at Residenzplatz 5 in Passau. — Inside the vault

The owner

Your host

Viktor runs the vaulted shop at Residenzplatz 5. He picked out every Black Forest clock on these walls himself.

If a clock wins you over, Viktor packs it and ships it home for you, anywhere in the world – you pick the figure on the platform first: a dog, pig, sheep or cow.

Come and visit

IIIHouse & History

Residenzplatz 5

A baroque corner house in the heart of Passau’s old town.

Four storeys rise at the corner of the Residenzplatz – a listed landmark, rebuilt after the great town fires of 1662 and 1680, its façade dating to the eighteenth century, a house of homes and shops. Seven window bays wide, the façade turns to the square, and two front doors still sit close beside one another – likely the trace of two plots that merged into a single house in the rebuilding. After the war it stood close to collapse; in 1954 it was saved with public funds – the heritage office counted it among the baroque buildings most important to Passau’s townscape.

Behind its tall arched shopfront windows lies the old lime-washed vault where the clocks have found their home today – cool, quiet, touched only sparingly by the light of the lanes.

Listed monument D-2-62-000-483; part of the protected ensemble of Passau’s old town.

Rebuilt after the fire of 1680. Today the clocks hang here.

Arches and rosette

Drawn from the House

The InnResidenz mark is taken from the house. The two arches in the wordmark are the arcades of the ground-floor windows, just as they face the square.

The rosette above comes from the wrought-iron shutters that close the windows at dusk – on the house since the 1880s, and listed as preserved in the monument inventory. It went into the mark as well.

IVLocation · Visit

On Residenzplatz

The shop sits between the fountain and the cafés. Step inside and it goes quiet: a vaulted room where only the clocks are ticking.

Address

InnResidenz
Residenzplatz 5
94032 Passau

Opening hours

Daily: 9 am – 5 pm

Closed January to mid-March – we still ship worldwide during those weeks.

The square

One of the finest Baroque squares north of the Alps, framed by the Bishop’s Residence and the Gothic cathedral choir. At its center stands the Wittelsbach Fountain of 1903 by the sculptor Jakob Bradl: the Virgin Mary and three angels for the rivers Danube, Inn and Ilz.

Getting here · Shipping

Five to ten minutes on foot from the river-cruise piers on the Donaulände, depending on your berth – a walk through the old town. And if you find a clock here, you don’t have to carry it: we pack it and ship it to your door, anywhere in the world.

Directions on Google Maps

The old town between the Danube and the Inn

Contact

Come and see us

Nothing beats coming by in person. Otherwise a short note will do – about a particular clock, or about shipping one home.

Email: clock [at] innresidenz [dot] comViktor reads every message himself.
Address: Residenzplatz 5
94032 Passau, Germany
in the old town, a few steps from the cathedralView on the map
Hours: Daily 9 am – 5 pmClosed January to mid-March

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