Switzerland 12/18: Zürich in the Daylight

Breakfast was included at our Zürich hotel and it was really fun. They had not only the standard continental fare - croissants, bread, jam, cereal, coffee, juice - but also fresh eggs that you boiled yourself and fresh oranges to squeeze in a juicer yourself. We had a great time and it was delicious.

After breakfast we packed up, checked out, and left our bags with the front desk so we could go out exploring for the day. Our first stop was of course the Grossmünster, which would be the cathedral of Zürich if it wasn't Protestant.

As I mentioned in the last post, it has an interesting history. It was built by the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne in 1090, after (according to legend) his horse suddenly knelt down over the graves of Zürich's patron saints, the martyrs Felix and Regula. It was fun to follow in the footsteps of Charlemagne again, after visiting his wonderful imperial cathedral in Aachen this time last year.

Felix and Regula were Christians who were beheaded in 286 AD by the Romans. The saints then picked up their own heads and carried them up the hill to where the Grossmünster stands today, dug their own graves, and interred themselves. Impressive! (The photo is a fresco in the Grossmünster of Felix or Regula.)

Incidentally, St Denis, the patron saint of Paris, did the same thing after being beheaded near the hilltop site of the Sacre-Coeur Basilica.

So the Grossmünster was very central to Zürich's religious life throughout the Middle Ages, with imposing architecture, such an illustrious history, and the holy relics of the head-carrying martyrs.

But in the 1500s, the Grossmünster became famous across all of Europe thanks to a man who had no use for saints or relics — Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531), a contemporary of Luther and one of the great leaders of the Reformation.

Preaching for 12 years from Grossmünster's pulpit, Zwingli initiated the Reformation in Switzerland. Zürich became a center of Protestant theology and students flocked to it from afar, including John Knox from Scotland, who later founded Presbyterianism.

Many of the great cities and cantons (Swiss provinces or counties) became Protestant, but some remained Catholic. This led to the Religious Wars, in which Zwingli was killed in battle. Today, Switzerland is still part Protestant and part Catholic.

We arrived about 10 minutes before it opened, and I happily passed the time examining the carved stone portal and bronze door depicting biblical stories.



They opened the doors immediately after the bells struck 10am - we love Swiss punctuality! It was nice to have it all to ourselves for a bit. The interior is pretty plain, because the former Catholic church was stripped of its idolatrous decorations at the Reformation.



However, there were still some old carved capitals and faded frescoes to enjoy and photograph. Both date from the original church built by Charlemagne. The frescoes were whitewashed during the Reformation, but have been uncovered in modern times.



There were more wonderful old frescoes on the ceiling of a downstairs side chapel:



And in the crypt was the original statue of Charlemagne that sat high on one of the towers (there's a replica up there now). It dates from about 1450.


After this quick look around, we headed up the tower before too many other people arrived. It was one of the better tower climbs, with a little more width in the spiral stairs and much more room at the top. Still lots of huffing and puffing all around, though! But the views from up there were so worth it!


After the tower, the last stop was the cloister, dating from when the Grossmünster was part of an abbey.



It wasn't beautiful in itself but had lots of fascinating Romanesque carvings. Very few had anything to do with religion, and some were stranger than others...




You can see our full photo gallery of this church, including all views from the tower and all the crazy carvings, here:

Grossmünster Photo Gallery

We did lots more walking after the Grossmünster, and visited two more churches for my website: the Fraumunster , known for its Marc Chagall windows, and the St Peterskirche, which is s pretty plain but has the largest clock face in Europe. (Click the links for info and photo galleries.)

Zürich's Old Town was just as lovely in the daytime as it had been the night before and we had a wonderful time exploring lots of alleys, squares, shops and fountains. It was very quiet - few shops were open and there were hardly people to be seen anywhere. Perfect!

Things were much more bustling in the New Town, which has a fancy shopping street called the Bahnhofstrasse. Here it felt a lot like London and there was none of the quaint medieval atmosphere of the Old Town. We did lots of people-watching and window-shopping and I admired some giant diamonds in the window at Bulgari...

This area of the city provided a glimpse into what Zürich is most known for - bankers and rich people. We passed lots of men in suits and lovely wool overcoats walking fast and talking on their cell phones.

Finally, having worn ourselves out with all the walking and nearly freezing our tails off, we headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags and made our way back to the huge train station.


Next door to the station is the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, the Swiss National Museum, which is housed in a beautiful 19th-century castle/mansion. We thought if it was cheap we'd go in, and amazingly it was. But it was also closed for the day. So we contented ourselves with a glimpse of the lobby and a tour of the outside, which included an ice rink and party tents set amongst the atmospheric old buildings.




At the station, we took another tour around the Christmas market and discovered an entire shopping mall on the lower level.



We got a kick out of this giant banner hung high on a wall in the train station:



We are both big fans of George, who just cracks us up. One of the fun things about living abroad is that we get to see all the commercials that American movie stars do only in Europe. It's a nice way for them to make some easy extra money without any potential damage to their image back home. There is a TV commercial to go with this banner, which we see all the time at home and also saw on Swiss TV with German subtitles. Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, you can watch it here (with French subtitles).

He also did one for Fiat that plays only in Italy and is set at his Lake Como house (see it here). I bet he made millions for what is probably a single day's work. Heck of a deal! In fairness to George, he has taken little to no pay for his last few arty/political movies (Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, The Good German), so could probably use the money to tide him over until Oceans Thirteen!

How was that for a tangent? Anyhoo, sometime around 3:30 we hopped on a nice double-decker train headed for our next destination, Einsiedeln.

Switzerland 12/17: Heathrow to Basel to Zurich

Our trip to Switzerland for the pre-holidays was wonderful and very festive. It was mighty cold - below freezing the entire time - but it never snowed. That was okay, though, as we had some blue-sky days in the cities and we still got to enjoy the snow during our day in the Alps. Thanks to good old Heathrow Airport our trip didn't begin very smoothly, although it could have been much worse.

Airport Adventures

Fortunately we avoided the major fog problem that you may have heard about, but on our departure day the baggage belts broke. We stood in the so-called "Fast Bag Drop" line (we had checked-in online) for two hours before the problem was announced and they canceled check-ins altogether.

Suitcases piled up on the belts behind the check-in desks. The time for boarding our flight came and went. Most people missed their flights, and those who didn't had to fly without their baggage. They were told it might be forwarded to them tomorrow, but probably the next day.

We cursed the fact that we had decided to check in bags this time, which lately we have been trying not to. If it weren't for the stupid new hand luggage limitations, our small suitcases and shoulder bags could have been carried on.

At least by that point we had made it to near the front of the line and were able to talk with the clerks who had nothing to do anyway. They recommended that we leave the check-in line and go rebook another flight before everyone else realized they needed to do the same thing. This was excellent advice for which we were very grateful!

We were helped pretty quickly at the British Airways ticket counter, but all remaining flights to Zurich that day were full. Instead we got on one for Basel, which is about an hour by train from Zurich. Fine by us! We were so grateful to make it to Switzerland at all. I would have accepted a flight to Paris or Berlin or wherever and ridden the train for hours, just as long as we didn't have to go home and eat the cost of our hotel in Zurich. So this was our revised route (in red):


We had a little over two hours before our new flight, so we took the shuttle bus back out to our car (thank goodness we drove Wilma - we had thought about the bus), where we repacked so that we had only carry-on luggage. That was difficult since we'd already packed pretty light, but it was a good exercise in taking only what we really need! Thankfully we had verified with a security agent that our huge cameras would not count as extra luggage if we wore them - we would have been in real trouble if we had to pack those as well!


Back at the airport, the chaos had reached new levels. People were being made to wait outside in the cold to prevent congestion in the airport. We attempted to check in online using David's laptop and then on one of the self-check in kiosks, but neither worked because we had changed our flight. The lines for the check-in desks were still extremely long, so we really weren't sure we'd be able to make our flight after all.

But thankfully, after waiting in line at the BA Customer Service desk for a good 30 minutes (while I waited with the luggage and took this photo), David was able to talk to a wonderfully nice and helpful agent who managed to get us boarding passes. Phew! Things were sure quiet at the security checkpoint and although our departure gate was changed at the last minute, everything went smoothly from there.

Basel

It was very interesting to arrive in Basel, since the city is right at the top corner where France, Germany and Switzerland meet. In fact, the airport is in France, and then a bus takes you into the city of Basel, Switzerland, within about 15 minutes. As you can see in the photo, we also could have chosen France or Germany just by taking a different exit!


Before getting on the train for Zurich we had a brief look around Basel, which looked like a nice city. It has a big cathedral so I had thoughts... but we were ready to get to our hotel in Zurich. We ogled the goodies at a couple Christmas-market stands outside the station...



...and bought some gorgeous Swiss chocolates from a shop in the station that was like heaven!



Train stations in Switzerland are so much different than just about everywhere else in the world - they are actually pleasant places to be! According to our guidebook, they often even have nice restaurants where locals go out for dinner.

So we passed the time easily until our train about 45 minutes later. For the train journey we got a delicious pretzel and drinks. David's beer is Feldschlossen, which seems to be the main Swiss beer and he said was very good.



Zurich

We arrived at Zurich's train station around 6 or 7pm and immediately got to enjoy their huge Christmas market, since it's in the station!



There were lots of wonderful things for sale - mostly homemade arts and crafts that were really high quality and quite unique. I can see this would be a fabulous place for Christmas shopping.




I especially fell in love with these star-shaped paper lanterns, but didn't feel like buying anything, nor figuring out how to get them home. I ended up seeing them at Christmas markets in other cities as well.


David's parents especially would have liked the Swarovski tree, fully decorated with their crystal ornaments. It was very impressive.




Then we walked across the river and for about 15 minutes to our hotel. Zurich was different than I'd expected, especially in the Old Town - much more cobbled and quaint than I would have thought for the largest city in Switzerland (but it still only has 365,000 people).

Our hotel was great, quite modern, had interesting decor - and we shared our room with Sophia Loren!




After dropping off our bags, we headed back out almost immediately to explore and look for dinner. Strolling Zurich's Old Town at night turned out to be one of the best experiences of the trip. They had Christmas lights hung over the cobblestoned alleys, which were the loveliest I've ever seen. The lights were very tasteful, made of almost all white bulbs dangling in rows, and were absolutely magical! Not a blue snowflake or flashing red reindeer in sight.


Zurich's main landmark, the Grossmunster (Great Minster or Cathedral), was closer to our hotel than we'd thought and it was a nice surprise to see it when we emerged from an alley. It's huge of course, but also different in architecture than any other European cathedral. And it has played an interesting role in the religious history of Zurich - but more on that tomorrow, when we actually visit the inside - and climb the tower!



We took some photos of it and of the other main church across the river (the Fraumunster, with a tall spire), experimenting with various railings and surfaces to substitute for the tripod we had left behind with our "extra" luggage during the repacking.




The streets were very quiet, but we were joined in our photography endeavors by a young Asian couple. We also enjoyed looking in the windows of all the restaurants and shops in the Old Town, which included a look at some cranberries from Oregon and some bunnies!




Then off to dinner. On our walk we had been excited to see another Mexican restaurant! Quite the luck to find Mexican food again so soon after our delicious experience in Amsterdam. Since most other restaurants near our hotel were Italian, we felt no pressure to eat "Swiss food" right away and happily went for the Mexican.

Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as good as the Amsterdam restaurant. I had a spinach quesadilla and David had an assorted platter and it was still Mexican and still good, but very overpriced (even for Switzerland). On the positive side, the atmosphere was nice and the menus were printed on giant wooden fish.

After dinner we did some more walking around in the city, returning to the Grossmunster, then crossing the river and coming back on another bridge before returning to our hotel and crashing after our long and adventurous day.