EUROPE BLOG April 18th, 2023 - ZURICH

 

4/18/23- It’s a tiring night. Our third train is delayed by 30 minutes, meaning it’ll miss our next connection. We still take it to Stuttgart and as I look online I see a direct train from here to Zurich leaving at 6:16am. This will give us about 3 hours at the station and 3 hours on the train, which puts us in Zurich 2 hours later than before but not as bad as switching 3 or 4 more times. During the long layover at the station, we enter an enclosed waiting area on the track only to have one other person in there blaring some weird cartoon/music crap at 3am. Feeling tired, there’s no way I’m listening to this for the next few hours, so we grab our bags and walk a few more tracks down to an empty one. At last, peace and quiet.

On the last train, I’m able to get some sleep, but right after the we enter Switzerland I get profiled by plain-clothed  border agents asking for my passport, where I’ve been and will be going, and what I have with me. With my long hair, beanie and sunglasses I’m sure I look like a drug mule to them right about now. They were itching to find something but they let me be.

At 9:30am we arrive in Zurich, tired and cold. It’s 45 degrees outside and there’s no relief at the station. We sit down on a bench to go over our game plan before deciding to just head for our AirBnb and hope it’s ready to at least store our bags for the day. We call an Uber and just as we arrive I get an email stating we can check-in. Sweet! It's not much more than a one bedroom dorm room, but the view is amazing.

We spend about an hour cleaning up, changing clothes and planning our day trip for tomorrow before tackling the tram to Old Town. We pay the 8.40 Francs for the 24-hour pass on the tram and wouldn’t you know it, they didn’t even ask for it when we board. Still good to have it just in case.

We take the Purple line to Old Town and walk a few minutes to Grossmunster (Romanesque Protestant Church). We tried to take some photos of the outside but the trolley cables are everywhere and always getting in the way. I understand being green and all, but did you have to sacrifice the look and feel of your city?

The entrance is free for the church and for good reason. There’s not much in there and like everything else in Zurich it appears under restoration. I’m starting to think April is the month cities get ready for the tourist summer season with all of the construction we’ve seen.

We continue walking around Old Town and across the bridge. The sites in this area are quite interesting, especially with the weather holding up to be a decent day, but glad we’re going on a day trip tomorrow as I’m not sure there’s much more that I would like to see of Zurich. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice city to explore (the largest in Switzerland), but it can get pretty expensive.

We soon make three stops on our way back to our AirBnb. First is for pastries at a place called Ass Bar. Don’t ask because I have no idea why? The second is to get kabobs (which are very good), and the third is to a grocery store for a few items. We do make one other detour up a funicular, that was included in our 24-hour pass. It takes us up the hill for some decent views of the city (although the trees are mostly blocking everything, unfortunately).

Ready to crash, we dive back into our AirBnb around 4pm and do our best to stay awake until dark by playing 80s music and doing the moonwalk.

     

We finish the night with an awesome sunset from our AirBnb window.

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