A Taste of Old Europe

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

The Kloten airport is 10km north of town. It is recommended to use the train from there to the Hauptbahnhof instead of taxis or buses. It is faster than any other method and leaves you practically in the town’s heart. A tram or a local taxi in the town’s centre will complete your way to your hotel.

Once inside, the place takes you one century back and northwest to a world that does not exist anymore but in the readers’ imagination. The comfortable green coaches by wooden tables and the classic bar invite for a long visit, maybe in the company of the appropriate pages in Ulysses, especially in the first century anniversary of the tale. The blackboard menu lists the daily specials (plattes) and the regulars are hamburgers, fish-and-chips and fried chicken legs; there is no greener place to taste a Guinness.

Open Monday through Friday from 11am to midnight and on Saturday from 11am to 6pm.

If asked what the national Swiss dish is, most foreigners will answer chocolate, cheese, or maybe fondue, but in my conversations with the locals, most answers were rosti, a delicacy much harder to export. The dish consists of boiled potatoes pressed into a round loaf inside a frying pan; this cooking process creates a brown crust on the top of the cake. This is the basic version, but many variations exist here and all of them consist of different dressings added to the topside of the dish as if it was a pizza. I took the excellent pork with cheese, but apparently the sausages and vegetables options, both served with cheese as well, are very popular. Obviously, this is a cholesterol-challenged plate, but once a year you can stop your counting for the sake of bilateral relationships. After your order is ready, the waiter will approach you from the inner side of the long coiled bar with a still-hot frying pan to be placed over a solid insulating wooden base in front of you - soon you will find out, once again, about another excellent Swiss culinary surprise.

However, the lake is not the only site in Horgen: the town seems frozen in time with houses designed in earlier centuries, its narrow streets and its slow pace in sharp contrast to its northern neighbor. As Zurich, the historic center of the town is a beautifully kept pedestrian zone that allows you to explore its wonders unconcerned by modern dangers. The Reformed Church provides a useful landmark, as well as a point of special interest due to its tall bell tower and unusual architecture. The complex Swiss topography offers a counterweight to the lake: the narrow town is trapped by quite steep hills that provide a nice opportunity for a short hiking along the well-marked paths in the afternoon.

Actually, the place is pleasant enough to contemplate making it the center of your stay in the Zurich area. You can easily reach the city whenever needed while feeling like you’re on a countryside vacation. Accordingly, the town offers some good hotels and my stay in the Seehotel Meierhof transformed the trip to Zurich into one of my best European trips.