Zurich Roundup

The Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Main train station). The statue is of Alfred Escher, a founder of the Swiss banking industry and the initiator of the train system in Switzerland. The inside of the train stain is imposing - lots of open spaces with shops and restaurants enclosed on the sides. There is a large shopping area underground though.

Continued in the extended entry. Go on. Click. You know you want to.

I took a city tour that drove us around the city pointing out places of interest. After that we drove along the Zurich Lake, past the Lindt factory (the locals close their windows in the summer because the smell of chocolate is too strong), and finally stopping at the picturesque town of Ripperswil. Our tour guide walked us up to the castle where Polish works of art were kept for several centurys in order to protect them. There's a permanent exhibit there now of Polish art. (I didn't go in Mom.) Half the tour went on to Lichtenstein for a tour of Heidi country, but I opted to walk around town and take the Sbahn back to Zurich. Here are a couple of photos from there. The view towards the lake is beautiful.

And they are known for their roses - they create a new type every year. Hence the two roses on the city flag. The other flags are the Swiss flag and hotel flag.

Back in Zurich I walked down the famous Bahnhofstrasse. It's the shopping street in Zurich. Towards the Bahnhof it's more pedestrian, more common shops - Esprit, Claires, a couple of books stores, and department stores. At the other end, towards the lake it's the more upscale stores - Cartier, other jeweliers, upscale designer clothes stores, etc. Between the two ends is the famous Sprungli cafe. I went inside Saturday to buy their Luxemburgli confectionaries to share with my co-workers and returned Sunday afternoon to have a coffee and cake in the cafe. More on that later. Oh, in the foreground is one of the many streetcars/trams of Zurich. I nearly walked in front of two or three of them. Sigh.

After buying my Luxemburgli I wandered towards the waterfront and came upon an enclosed gazebo decorated like a candle. Now, I love candles. And there were lots of people hanging around this place, so I decided to check it out. This place is a charity organization that sets up every year at Christmas allowing you to create your own beeswax candle. There are about ten open vats of hot liquid beeswax, lots of string pieces, a couple of sheets of instructions (also in English!), a couple of volunteers and about a hundred children running around. It was great fun. You dip your string in, wait two minutes, dip it again. As the candle increases in thickness you have to wait a little longer between dips so that the wax cools enough to semi-harden. Children would come in, dip their candle two or three times, hang it up and run outside to play. Some of them had really thick (rather phallic looking, erm) candles. At the end a volunteer takes your candle, trims it up, decorates it as you wish, and then you pay about 4 Swiss francs per 100g of beeswax. Pretty cheap, you have lots of fun making them, and it's all for a good cause. The money goes towards a charity helping mentally challenged adults.

After playing with beeswax I found a Fondue/Raclette restaurant for dinner. I ended up meeting two really interesting other Americans at the table next to me, so dinner turned out wonderfully. The other two had met on a tour earlier in the day and decided to have dinner together. I thought they were on a date, but she said they weren't. I think he thought/hoped they were. ;) Anyway, she's a doctoral student studying cranial formations and had spent the whole week buried in the University library. He was a lawyer for a US/International Pharmeceutical Company. We had a great time talking about places we'd individually been and gave each other tips on places to see. They were both going on to Germany the next day - she Frankfurt, him Munich/Nurnberg - so I gave them some tips on what to see/do in Germany. Oh, the food was good to, but my scarf smelled like burnt cheese for days afterwards! Lol.

Saturday evening I went out looking for a nice bar/disco to hang out in. Zurich has a big nightlife - lots of trendy restaurants, bars, discos. I was looking for a place where I wouldn't feel out of place alone, but could people watch and enjoy a drink or two. Each place I came upon just didn't seem right though. Too crowded, too trendy, too loud, too quiet, etc. Just as I was about to give up and call it a night, I rounded a corner and came upon Cafe Odean.

To quote Goldilocks, it was juuust right. Not too happening, good atmosphere, nice crowd. So I went in and ordered a drink. After about five minutes I noticed there was something a little...different about this bar. First off, most of the people were guys and they seemed to be paired off in twos. Okay, nothing odd, except their body language was a little more than two guys hanging out. The big tip off though was the guy at the other end of the bar. Older gentleman, sharply dressed, short hair cut, he looked like he'd be perfectly at home in an upper class Boston country club. Except....the rhinestone bow tie, necklace, braclets and rings. Hee hee. Really, I wasn't uncomfortable, I just had fun people watching. As I'm sure they were watching me. Before I left I asked the bartender about an art deco print that looked like it was a drawing of the bar. She confirmed that it was and was an original print. The bar is 93 years old and used to encompass the entire ground floor. They're trying to re-aquire the space that the pharmacy has so they can return to their former glory. And she confirmed the bar is mainly a hang out for gays. It's also a known hang out of James Joyce and Lenin. Do I have taste or what? :)

Sunday I wandered around and went into a museum. There was an exhibit about Sports Design and another about False Chalets. That last one was really interesting. From the end of WWII until about 10 years ago, the Swiss Army built and maintained about 100 bunkers scattered throughout Swiss countryside. In order to conceal them, they built them to look like Swiss chalets, even though most of the outside was simply painted on to look real. And they did look real. A passer-by who didn't look close would never realize the windows or balcony were painted on. Very interesting.

Finally, I went back to the Sprungli cafe to pass away the time until my train left. I thought I would calmly drink a coffee and write some postcards. Didn't happen. Instead, I met these two lovely, very interesting older ladies and spent two hours chatting with them. One is a 97 yr old twin and her twin is still living. I would never have thought she was 97. 80 maybe. She is so full of life. The other was a 75 yr old lady. She has had some real reversals of fortunes in her life - from houses with servants to having to work as a school teacher to pay the bills. We had so much fun just chit chatting about life. I am so glad I went there and met them. They were honestly the highlight of my trip. The twins did an interview with a German magazine last month, so I'm going to keep my eye out for the article. If I find it, I'll link to it or post a photo/scan of it.

That was my trip to Zurich. All in all, it's a nice place to visit, but probably much nicer 1) with somebody else and 2) in the spring/summer. I was disappointed in the shopping hours - they're shorter than in Germany! I did have a nice time though. :)

Posted by Jinglelady at November 23, 2004 12:54 AM | Traveling | TrackBack