Summary: This wealthy City of banking and finance sits on Lake Zurich in Northern Switzerland. Zurich is an immaculately clean city of nearly 500,000 residents that is rich in history, fondue restaurants, and beautiful waterfront walkways. Here, we enjoyed a fun-filled 24 hours in Zurich by taking a free walking tour, a walk along Lake Zurich, shopping in old town, a stop at a clock and watch museum, and dinner in Zurich fondue restaurant that first opened in 1883.
[This blog is part of a 10-days in Switzerland Trip].
Why Switzerland. I wish we could say we chose Switzerland because we always dreamed of fondue and hiking the Swiss alps, but that's not really how it happened. We chose Switzerland in a roundabout way. I was taking my 86-year-old father to Spain to visit his family since he can't travel alone anymore. Since we were all the way across the pond, we decided to stay and make it a vacation. However, to choose a place to visit - without our usual travel family (our now adult children), we had to pick a place more suitable for these two empty-nesters and not high on the kids' list or risk never hearing the end of it, ha ha. We we landed on Switzerland because it's an easy flight from Spain; it's super pricey so paying for two is better than four or five; and the boys had previously ventured into Switzerland on our Italy trip so they already had it marked off their "never have I been" country list. So for not the usual reasons, we landed in Zurich, Switzerland on my birthday.
Zurich. This wealthy City of banking and finance sits on Lake Zurich in Northern Switzerland. We flew in and out of Zurich and while in this City, we used public transportation. [Later, we rented a car to head up to the mountains though train travel throughout Switzerland is very easy]. Zurich, founded by the Romans 2000 years ago, is now a immaculately clean City of nearly 500,000 residents. This City is rich in history, fondue restaurants, and beautiful waterfront walkways.
Walking Tour. Per our usual routine, we started with a free walking tour. Starting at Credit Suisse (below), we headed over to Münsterhof, a medieval town square.
Right next to Zurich's Fraumünster are frescos painted in the former cloisters of the abbey church.
Next, we walked over to see waterfront and nearby Münsterbrücke pedestrian bridge.
Next we walked over to Lindenhof Hill, a public square above the City.
The last part of the tour brought us to the central section of old town Zurich. We stopped at Cafe 1842 to buy some Swiss chocolate, of course!
In this central district we also stopped in some specialty shops, including this little gem. Here, we bought an assortment of dried fruits and more chocolate for the road.
Walk along Lake Zurich. Along Lake Zurich is a beautiful walkway used by locals and tourists alike. This stretch has many photo-opportunities, along with plenty of people watching. Locals on lunch break from work, wearing suits and dresses, enjoyed picnics on benches. Families with dogs enjoyed picnics on the grass.
The turnaround point has public restrooms for a cost of one euro.
After our walk along the water, we crossed over to the high class shopping district of Bahnhofstrasse. We walked past Rolex, Dior, Channel, and all the usual shops that are not our cup of tea, to get to the Clock and Watch Museum.
Clock and Watch Museum. In the below-ground floor of a watch store sits a Clock and Watch Museum. It is easy to miss so when you enter, go past the store and around to the stairs that take you below ground. Here, you'll enter an area that requires you to lock your belongings in a locker before entering the small but mighty valuable museum of ancient to modern clocks and watches. This interesting little spot took us about 45 minutes to complete. Visitors are given individual iPads to help navigate the history of each item in the collection.
Rest. Feeling a bit jet-lagged, we decided to make our next stop a little secret place our walking tour guide mentioned earlier, while we waited for our dinner reservations. Fraumünster Church has a small courtyard right next to the main entrance where visitors are permitted to sit and enjoy the quiet. The door to the courtyard is not obvious but it is just to the left of the Church entrance.
Birthday dinner. Since it was my birthday after all, we decided to splurge on a lovely dinner at Le Dezaley, a fondue restaurant that first opened in 1883. Located in the central historical district, we found many other tourists lining up to eat here so were glad to have arrived when it first opened. The waitstaff were lovely and made recommendations for our first-ever fondue dinner.
Here we go:
....and now his turn.
Even if you have just one day in Zurich, like us, be sure to enjoy a pot of fondue! We found there were many more options here and once in the smaller towns, the menus catered entirely to tourists and felt far less authentic. Le Dezaley had excellent service and we were stuffed silly with cheese before we rolled ourselves out of there and headed back to our hotel for the night.
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