After settling in to the Park Hyatt we asked for a traditional Swiss restaurant for dinner and the hotel happily made a reservation for us at the Swiss Chuchi which served fondue and raclette which both involved melting cheese and eating it...so I was totally on board!
To get to the restaurant it was a short 10-15 minute walk over to the old part of Zurich which is full of shops on tiny winding streets that seem to turn into a completely new world at every cross street. I could get lost here, with pleasure, for days on end just searching for cool shops and looking at the awesome architecture. The streets were still decorated for the holidays so there were glowing lights everywhere. Our reservation time came up so we headed over to the restaurant.
The restaurant had many options but we figured we had to go with the classics so Kelsey went with the cheese fondue that was made with sparkling wine and I went with the traditional raclette with chicken. The food was absolutely delicious and the waiter was very very funny and made the experience lots of fun. He kept joking that only in Switzerland would they charge you more to cook your own food. Maybe he just saw us coming from a mile away and had to "joke" with us about it, but it was worth it for me.
After eating we had to walk off our delicious meal and we wandered around old town Zurich some more and walked along the river that leads in to Lake Zurich that divides the new and old parts of town. Along the river are many of the famous churches of the city, including the Grossmunster with its double steeple. The city is stunningly beautiful at night and remarkably quiet when walking around.
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| Looking toward Lake Zurich |
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| Grossmuster |
We walked back to the Park Hyatt and turned in for the night, but I took a few pictures of the outside of the hotel, which was still beautifully decorated for the holidays.
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| Park Hyatt |
The next day I woke up with one of the worst head colds I have every had. To spare you all of the details I was up most of the night coughing and nose running so I was not able to get moving at our early wake up call. So Kelsey went out and explored the shopping on the main Bahnhofstrasse shopping street. Here she learned a valuable lesson when you are shopping in Zurich, buy your chocolate in the grocery store. Along the street you will be distracted by beautiful chocolate shops that will be selling things for WAYYYY too much money. Yes it's delicious, but we had to stick to our budget. So she wandered in to a "Coop" store and was able to find many of the famous Swiss chocolate brands for around one to two francs per bar, rather than per 100 grams that you will find in the stores.
After sleeping for a bit I was feeling alright, but not great but I didn't want to miss out on our only full day so we headed back to the train station to catch the local S10 train to Uetilberg, a look out over the city. After getting off the train it is a short walk up to the look out which is 2850 feet over Zurich and you can see beautiful views of Zurich, Lake Zurich and the Alps off in the distance. It was a stunningly beautiful view that was included in our Zurich Card.
After taking the train back down to the train station we boarded a tram to Burkliplatz and boarded the "short trip" ferry which would take us on a hour and a half cruise around Lake Zurich, which was actually my favorite part of the trip, to see the city from the water. The boat was PACKED full of people so we didn't get a seat for most of the ride, but toward the end people were frozen and didn't want to sit on the back deck so we bundled up and watched the lake go by from the back of the boat.
We headed back to the old part of town and had dinner at a great kabob shop near where we ate dinner the night before. It was nothing fancy, but it was absolutely delicious and not too expensive, which was nice after looking at most Zurich prices. There is no denying that the city is very expensive and you will notice it all around you. But the town is absolutely beautiful and it was well worth braving my cold to explore. Next it's on to Geneva!
Nice Pics Chris!
ReplyDeleteZurich is just so beautiful.
Lovely place to visit.
Swiss Holidays