Europe 2019 - Day 6

12 May 2019, Sunday - Mothers’ Day

Today is a free and easy day to explore Zurich city. We headed out at about 9 a.m. to the main bus station where we went to the tourist information centre and obtained a city map and some useful information about how to get to places of interest. This is my usual modus operandi, not following instructions on google maps or other internet related information which my friend is so heavily reliant on. I’ve always preferred human interaction when I’m in a foreign country, and I also prefer to get exact information on how to get to a place so that I don’t waste time figuring out the entire public transportation system.

Another thing about Switzerland. With a population of only about 8 million people, Switzerland has 4 official languages - German, French, Italian and Romansh (no idea what this is). English is not an official language here and indeed, I don’t think many people here speak English all that well. But the folks here are nice and friendly so in the end language wasn’t a problem.

Anyway, having obtained the information we wanted, the first thing we did was take pictures of the main bus station which in itself is a thing of beauty, with a statue of the Swiss rail pioneer Alfred Escher in front of the building. Then we headed out to the zoo which is the nearest stop to the FIFA headquarters. I could only take pictures from outside as the place was heavily fenced off.

Then we walked along Bahnhofstrasse which is apparently the most expensive shopping street in the world, with brands such as Hermes, Mont Blanc, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Ferragamo, TagHeuer, Patek Philippe, Bvlgari, etc etc. Then we took a water taxi up and down River Limmat with a stop at Zurichhorn overseeing Lake Zurich for the fun of it because our 24 hour ticket included the boat ride.

Then back to the main train station where I bought Lindt Swiss chocolates for Amma and Swiss Army knives (Victorinox) for Philip, me, my older brother and my cousin. Then we took a stroll through what is known as old town. Here we saw the Grossmunster church with its iconic double towers and spires, which has become somewhat of a landmark for Zurich. 

We also passed Wasserkirche (another church) and Fraumunster church, which is one of the oldest churches in Switzerland dating back to the 11th century and initially belonging to the Benedictine convent and was a women’s abbey. Lastly St Peter’s church with huge clock faces on all four sides which can be seen from the River Limmat. The clock faces is almost 9 metres and said to be the biggest in Europe. This was the first church in Zurich that was built as a Protestant place of worship after the Reformation. 

Then we were done and back to the apartment where my friend cooked tomyam fried rice (a bit of a disaster but still edible) with fried sausages, and then we washed and dried all our clothes, beer of course and sleep.