Travelday - Where We Wander Zurich

Our first full day in Zurich was a little slow but still very nice. Fortunately pushing ourselves a little the day before had the exact effect we were after and we woke at a reasonable time feeling reasonably normal. After a quick in-room breakfast of muesli and milk bought the day before (side note - Swiss muesli is delicious!) we made our way to the train station and into town.

Neither of us are particularly into gawking in shop windows, especially not at ridiculously priced 'luxury items', so the main streets and centre of Zurich didn't hold our attention for long. Thankfully we took a good random turn, over the bridge and into the old town. The streets were suddenly hilly, cobbled, thin and gorgeous - now we felt like we were somewhere new.

After a stop at a very nice little corner cafe (which disappointingly we couldn't find again when we were looking for lunch later) we continued to wander up and down delightful streets and lanes until coming eventually upon Grossmünster.

This is an absolutely beautiful building with enough detail to keep you going for hours if you really wanted to. The inside was stunning too but no photos were allowed so we kept the camera tucked away.

Top left - the intricately carved front door. Top right - a surprisingly oriental spire. Bottom left - a view of one bell tower taken from the other. Bottom right - the carved detail everywhere was amazing.

The Sparky convinced me that climbing the bell tower was a good idea, pointing out that it was in all likelihood a once in a life time opportunity and at the end of the day the cost of a few Swiss Francs wouldn't bankrupt us! So, despite my mild phobias (open stairs, ladders, confined spaces - yay this included all of them!), up I went and I have to say the view alone was well worth it -

Just like a model toy town

Fraumunster across the river - taken at ground level

Eventually we took ourselves off for more wandering - parks, views, river, lake, giant chess boards, so much went unphotographed because we were just really enjoying taking it all in.

Of course a boat ride on the lake was a must -

Top left - standing on a bridge looking down the river. Top right - view from the boat towards the main town. Bottom left - the lake just kept going and going. Bottom right - not a pretty photo but it's as close to the Lindt Factory as we got.

More wandering took us to the end of the day and a reasonably early night, partly because we were still slightly out time-wise and partly because we had an early start the next day ...




Good News!! - I will go into it more when I get to Venice in this Travelday commentary but I was very, very happy to read this today (on the day that I first started drafting this post), I hope they're serious.