The train ride was Zurich, is a beautiful city that is fringed by a lake and the outline of the Alps is visible from a fair distance. We were quite amazed that the tops of the mountains still had snow, although the central city was baking at close to 30 degrees Celsius - could we improve our tan in Switzerland?
Zurich Train Station
Zurich's main train station - Zurich Hauptbahnhof had a very interesting sculpture of a blue angel dangling from the ceiling. We used it as a reference point as we searched for the best exit nearest to our hotel.
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| The angel sculpture at the main station |
Hotel Alexander
It was a short walk to our hotel, Hotel Alexander located in a fairly noisy restaurant-bar area near the river. The hotel had some interesting old drawings of medieval Zurich and it was interesting to see how many churches and buildings had survived since then.
City Sightseeing
Being summer, the city was well decorated by a large number of floral displays on statues and fountains.
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| Summer flowers |
A short walk away, we saw the church of St Peter with the largest clock face in the world; as well as the twin towers of the Romanesque-style Grossmunster..
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| The Grossmunster by day |
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| And at night |
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| Very scenic with all the churches lining the waterway |
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| The beautiful architecture |
Beer and Sausages
However the 35 degree heat soon became quite bothersome and we had no energy for seeking out the Lindt chocolate factory for some (potentially melted) Swiss chocolate. Instead what better way to cool ourselves down with than a Bavarian style beer with sausages, in-line with the Germanic influence on Swiss food. We considered having fondue the next day, but the area around our hotel was clearly a targeted tourist trap and we settled instead for a kebab and local beer.
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| Beer! |
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| And more beer |
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| The Bavarian Beer hall |
Lake Zurich
The second day we ventured out onto Lake Zurich where pleasure boats and ferries were jousting for position as they weaved around thousands of Swiss locals making good use of the lake side water parks to cool down.
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| Our ferry around the lake |
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| Hundreds of pleasure boats on the lake |
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| Zurich locals using the bank of the lake as a beach |
The Swiss style cottages were very postcard like surrounded by trees with snow tipped mountains in the background, interrupted by an outdoor rave party that had been set up on an abandoned jetty.
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| The original Swiss Cottage |
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| An outdoor party by the lake |
Man Overboard
However our relaxing ferry ride soon encountered a bit of drama when a man dressed in a full suit decided to take a dip and jumped off the back, presumably to commit suicide. Unfortunately for him, Lake Zurich was full of private citizens who witnessed the event unlike the captain of our vessel whom suddenly had to make a very abrupt U-turn when alerted by a passing speedboat that it was 'man overboard' and decided to rescue him from his planned demise.
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| Man in a suit being rescued by locals on the lake |
This event then led to the water police being called to interview the man and a 5 min disruption to the ferry timetable. This was likely to have upset the time-keeping Swiss captain very much. After the boat ride, we took a walk back to our hotel, cooling off with that classic childhood favourite icypole - Calippo, as we made our way to the train station. Next destination: Milan.
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