Day 15 – Zürich’s Altstadt : The Old Town
We left Brienz on an early train for Zürich so that we could have the better part of Saturday to explore this vibrant Swiss city before our flight home on Sunday morning. Zurich is located in north-central Switzerland at the tip of Lake Zurich and astride the Limmat River. Originally founded by the Romans in 15 BC it is now the largest city in Switzerland with just under 400,000 residents in the city proper and with a total metropolitan area reported to be well over one million. I think that you’d have to include a sizable chunk of the surrounding Swiss countryside to reach that number – the city just doesn’t look or feel anywhere near that big.
While Zürich is not the governmental capital of Switzerland (that’s actually Bern), the banks, insurance companies, and stock market based here make it the acknowledged heart of the Swiss economic engine. Many national and international companies have their headquarters in the area, thanks to excellent railway, road, and air access along with favorable tax rates and a highly educated workforce. Zürich is also home to numerous research centers, no great surprise given that the two largest local universities, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Zürich, have produced 33 Nobel Prize laureates. When you factor in more than 50 museums, 100 art galleries, and ready access to outdoor pursuits in the nearby Alps it’s easy to see why Zürich is known for having an exceptionally high quality of life. As you might expect these same factors lead to an exceptionally high cost of living, but by happy coincidence Zürich is also arguably the wealthiest city in Europe.
We did our packing the night before, so all that we had to do this morning was stuff a few items in our backpacks, leave the chalet key in the door, and walk over to the Brienz bahnhof. We left Brienz on the 7:25 AM InterRegional heading north towards Lucerne. We knew that the train would reverse directions at Meiringen (see Day 4) so by boarding a car at the end of the train in Brienz we would end up at the front of the train in Lucerne. We also knew our arriving and departing gleis (track numbers) in Lucerne from the SBB on-line timetable so this made it easier to lug our roller duffels several tracks over during the six minute layover before our train left for Zurich. We arrived at the massive Zürich Hauptbahnhof (the main railway station) a few minutes before 10:00 AM. Arriving in Zürich was a bit of a shock after being immersed in rural Switzerland for the past two weeks – definitely a case of “bright lights, big city”. There were probably more people just in the Zürich Hauptbahnhof on this sunny Saturday morning than in most of the small towns we’ve visited this trip. Heck, the real estate footprint of the bahnhof was probably bigger than most of those towns. From the bahnhof we walked across the Limmat River and up the hill to the EMA House, the small 22 room all-suite hotel where we would stay overnight for an early departure in the morning. We were too early to check in, but the front desk kindly took our bags and locked them up so that we could enjoy our day wandering the city without 100 pounds of baggage in tow.
Usually these “turn around days” are a compromise in order to simplify travel home the following day, but this one was different. The weather was great and the town was alive because everyone wanted to be outside after a particularly rainy and late spring season. Let’s just say that in addition to the natural scenery the people watching was epic. Only in Zurich would you see a busker in tails playing classical music on a violin! We started out walking next to the Limmat River on the Limmatquai and Utoquai before picking up the historic Seefeldquai promenade along the shore of Lake Zurich. This gave us excellent views of the many boats out on the lake as well as the Albis foothills across the water. We found a nice bench along the way and enjoyed some apples with a nice view of the lake and the intriguing parade of people. We eventually made it to the end of the promenade at Brandis (about 2-1/2 miles) before turning around and heading back to explore Zürich’s Altstadt.
The Altstadt or “Old Town” is officially the outline of Zürich circa 1893, roughly the same as the area that was enclosed by the city’s defensive ramparts (that no longer exist). As you might expect the area is filled with historic buildings, shops, galleries, and restaurants. After wandering around for a while we had a casual late lunch at a sidewalk Italian cafe called Molino where we met a nice young Swiss couple. His parents were Swiss but he was raised in South Africa and she was from Croatia; fortunately their English was far better than our German. We asked them where they went for getaways and they said “Germany or Austria – Switzerland’s too expensive!” Amen to that. Beer prices not withstanding, at about 3:00 PM we stopped at a small outdoor cafe for two large Feldschlossen drafts so that we could sit and absorb just a bit more of Switzerland before our flight home the next day. One phrase that Stuart has carefully memorized in German is “Zwei große Biere vom Fass, bitte” (two large draft beers, please).
Speaking of going by, we saw lots of great cars on the roads around Zürich … it was practically Top Gear’s greatest hits. In those few hours I saw a lifetime’s worth of late model exotics from Lamborghini, Ferrari, Maserati, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce, and Bentley as well as an Audi R8 Cabriolet (basically a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder in disguise). There were simply too many Porsches to count and even high-end Mercedes were relegated to the “yeah, whatever” category – kind of embarrassing for someone that’s owned an SL500. That said, I did spot an über-rare and über-expensive MacLaren SLR in traffic at a stoplight but couldn’t fire up my camera fast enough to get a picture. Perhaps the most amusing (or maybe horrifying?) sighting was a beautiful mid-1930’s vintage Bentley sedan awaiting detailing at an automatic drive-through car wash … I guess that their people had the weekend off!
When we arrived back at the EMA House late in the afternoon we found that the manager had upgraded us to a very nice suite complete with living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, and a foyer the size of many in-city European hotel rooms (ask me how I know this courtesy of my days at GE!). We watched a little English language TV via satellite, had a nice dinner, and then crashed for the night knowing that the next day promised to be very long, very tiring, and more than a little depressing.
Map
Photos
Weather
| High : 73 | Low : 56 | Mostly sunny all day long with a light breeze building during the afternoon. |
Meals
| Breakfast | On the train |
| Lunch | An outside table at Molino in Zürich’s Altstadt |
| Dinner | In a restaurant |