It had been 20 years since I last visited Zürich; I had vague memories of a beautiful city under blue skies, with the Alps rising snow-capped over the Zürichsee.
Weather was not on my side as I touched down in Zürich this time. The Swiss weather in October is unpredictable. I’d packed a travel umbrella and a fleece jacket, “just in case.”
The new Flughafen (Zürich airport) is quite nice: spacious, well-lit, and modern. It’s also a long walk from when you pass through the gates until you get your luggage and fo through Customs, but once you clear those, head downstairs to the transit lobby, where one can purchase train tickets for anywhere in Switzerland – train lines run directly under the airport, so you do not even have to go into the city to get on a train to other parts of the country. One more escalator down I found myself on the train platform, ready to head into the city.
One of the best things about traveling in Europe is that public transportation is plentiful, and nowhere on the continent will you find it easier to navigate than Switzerland. The Swiss travel network is sensibly arranged: bus and train lines share main stations, schedules are clearly posted, and everything runs on time.
I was so worried about making sure I got off at the correct stop that when I heard the announcer say in German “Zürich” and looked out the window and saw a large amount of train tracks and what looked like a sizable train station, I got off the train. Whoops… as it turned out, I’d gotten off one stop too early, but as I realized my mistake, my train was already pulling out of the station. Not sure how often trains ran through this particular station, and not yet a whiz at Swiss train schedule, I figured I would go downstairs and grab a taxi.
The person at the newsstand pointed out where I was on the map, and I felt reassured, thinking I was not too far from my hotel. However, I was soon to find out that Swiss taxis are very expensive. The meter starts around CHF6 ($4.65) and goes up quickly. Additionally, since Zürich’s streets, particularly in the oldest parts of town, can run one-way or be impassible by car (too narrow, too steep, or turn into a staircase in parts), and drivers may have to drive a lengthy distance to reach what looks like, on the map at least, a short distance. I quickly racked up CHF30 ($23) on what was approximately a 2-mile ride.
I spent my first and last nights in the Hotel zum Storchen, a luxurious boutique hotel on the banks of the Limmat River. This charming hotel has been in business for approximately 650 years, and everything that they do shows that they know hospitality. The staff was wonderful, warm, and welcoming. I had a nice room on the fifth floor with a view of the Rathaus. I loved the huge tub in the bathroom and the Craftmatic bed.
The “Stork” is also home to the boatman's guild. You can see the shields of the guild members in the hotel’s main restaurant, and guild trophies are displayed throughout the hotel.
My tour guide for the city, Elsbeth Harsch, has given tours through Zürich Tourism for 24 years. She was extremely knowledgeable, providing me with all kinds of tidbits about the city I would not have discovered in general tour books. We started our tour by heading up Strehlgasse, passing the historic St Peterskiche (St. Peter’s Church), whose claim to fame is that it has the largest clock face in Europe – 8.7m (28 feet), with the original clock installed in 1538. A church has stood on this site for approximately 1,000 years; however, the main body of the present church dates to around 1705 to 1716. Long ago, there used to be a fire warden who would keep watch from the tower and had to look in each of the four directions once every 15 minutes all day.
The Strehlgasse continues up to Lindenhof, where the Celts first settled in the 1st century BC. The Celts called this settlement Turicum. In the local German dialect, the area came to be called Zuri, and Zürich joined the Swiss Confederation in 1351. Romans later built a fort here in the 9th century, and the remains of that fort make up some of the fortified walls of the Lindenhof. The views up here are lovely; on clear days you can see across the Zürichsee to the Alps. When the weather is decent, even if it’s cold, you’ll find people sitting up here, playing chess. If you’re in the mood for some chess of your own, there is an oversize tile board to one side of the park and a box full of large wooden pieces to play with.
Another notable feature about this park is the fountain on the east side, which commemorates the women’s brigade of 1292. Local legend has it that when the invading Hapsburgs came to town, the women dressed in armor and marched up to Lindenhof. The invaders thought they were outnumbered, and they retreated from the city.
From here, we wandered down the hill and along the river, before crossing the Rathausbrücke and headed into the Niederdorf district on the right/east bank of the Limmat River. This is a very interesting part of the city, loaded with boutiques, specialty shops, hotels, and restaurants.
Halfway between the river and the university buildings is the Predigerkirche, whose origins date back to the 13th century, when it was part of a monastery. Today, it is the university’s main church, and its spire, built in 1900, is the tallest in Zürich.
As you walk around the city, it is difficult to determine which buildings are old and which are new. Unlike its neighbors, Switzerland has not seen much warfare on its own soil in hundreds of years, so in the “old town” sections in most cities and towns, you will often find buildings that date back 400 years or more. For a long time, Zürich allowed older medieval buildings to be taken down and newer buildings put up in their place, but new laws protect older buildings now.
Part of the reason it is difficult to determine buildings’ age at a glance is because most buildings in Switzerland are painted rather plainly. The reason is that when the Protestants rose to power during the Swiss Reformation, the preacher Ulrich Zwingli advocated simplicity in design. For example, the Grossmünster (“Great minister”) was once quite ornate inside, but Zwingli ordered the decorations stripped, even from the tombs of the Zürich saints, Felix, and Regula.
Although the exteriors of most buildings are quite plain, occasionally you will see a glimpse inside a building and realize that the walls and ceilings within still bear Baroque or Romanesque decorations: sky, scrolls, angels, and more.
One of the museums tucked into the Niederdorf area is the Zinnfiguren Museum (Obere Zäune 19, open Saturdays 11-4). The Zinnfiguren has over 40,000 pewter figures in its collection, predominantly civil and military subjects. This museum is probably more of interest to somebody who likes to paint these kind of figures. It should be noted that this museum is one of the ones included under museum admissions on the ZürichCARD.
If you like the Zinnfiguren Museum, you would probably also enjoy the Zürcher Spielzeugmuseum (Zürich Toy Museum), which contains over 1,200 antique toys from all over Europe. The museum is located on the fifth floor of the building at Fortunagasse 15 and has short hours (Monday to Friday 2-5pm, Saturday 1-4pm). It’s a fun visit, especially if you like toys.
Everywhere we went, the streets of Zürich smelled wonderful as the scent of various restaurants floated by us. It’s hard to believe, but Zürich used to operate under a law where a new restaurant could not open until an old one had closed. When the law was removed from the books a few years ago, in conjunction with laws with more lenient closing hours permitted, Zürich’s culinary and nightlife scenes exploded. Today, Zürich is considered to be a hip and happening town, and people fly in from all over Western Europe to party and be seen on the club scene here.
You can still see Dadaism exhibitions at the home of the movement, Cabaret Voltaire (Spiegelgasse 1, open Tuesday to Sunday 1pm-7pm, 6pm on Sundays). The building where this art movement was founded was used by a variety of nightclubs and bars before the city parliament renovated and reopened the building.
The Spiegelgasse intersects with where the Münstergasse, which leads towards Grossmünster cathedral, becomes Neiderdorfstasse. This area is thick with shops and restaurants, very worth exploring, but for now it was on to the cathedral.
To be continued, part 2