Swiss Holidays: Living Zurich

Today was our best day in Zurich. It was also our least touristic day in Zurich, which says a lot.

It started off a bit touristic, though.  We hopped off the city tram at the first Starbucks we saw in the city center and tapped into their wi-fi to prepare for tomorrow's trip to Vienna.  We mapped out the hotel, the train station, and a bus route between.  How did we ever travel without the iPad?

After that we walked to the only Zurich sight left that interested me: the Fraumünster.  I'd disregarded it the first few days until I learned that the stained glass windows were designed by Marc Chagall. And then I simply could not leave Zurich without seeing the Fraumünster.

The windows didn't disappoint, and even David was impressed - only a day after declaring he wasn't a Chagall fan.

From the Fraumünster we strolled through the cobbled streets of the old town again. I popped into a few optometrists' shops to ask about a replacement for a torn contact and finally emerged victorious, happy to be rid of my glasses for the rest of the day.

Further down the road we stopped in a chocolate shop and chose a handful of pieces to have with lunch.

We stopped at a cluster of benches near a fountain and ate our packed lunch leisurely, watching pedestrians and high end cars roll by.  We lamented not having time in the Starbucks to check movie listings and I pulled out the iPad to give it a try anyway.

And what do you know, Zurich has free wi-fi.  At least semi free wi-fi, because I couldn't check my email, but I was able to search for a movie theater playing Inception within close range of our park bench.  Excellent.

We had a few hours to kill, so we took our time strolling to the theater section of town, then buying our tickets a few hours in advance.  In Swiss movie theaters (or perhaps only Zurich, I cannot confirm) you choose your seats in advance, much like a proper theater.  How civilized.

With at least an hour yet to wait, we bought a bottle of water to share and parked ourselves on another bench in front of another fountain and wrote the last of our postcards.  The weather was sunny, and the temperature comfortable.  Perfect conditions for sitting around and enjoying doing nothing with your favorite person.

As the movie hour approached we strolled back to the theater and took our cushy seats.  No sticky floors, no litter, no reminders to turn off our cell phones because we've all already turned them off, being the civilized human beings that we are.

The movie was shown in it's original language (English), with subtitles in both French and German. Which only confused me for a few frantic minutes when characters spoke Japanese and my eyes were scrambling for a subtitle to make it all make sense.

Oh, it turns out that in Switzerland, they have an intermission in the middle of films.  Like Greece (so I've heard).  Look at all this interesting stuff we learned just going to a movie.

After the movie it was getting close to nightfall, and we walked out to the bank of the river to find it full of people out enjoying the evening.  We strolled up and down the bank watching the sunset play on the boats and water, and people feeding the swans and ducks.

It was too late to pick up groceries to make for dinner, so we stopped at an outdoor restaurant selling grilled sausages to go. We were handed fat sausages on paper plates and a tray of potato wedges, then the cook pointed toward a plastic bin behind us.  I reached in and fished out a four-leaved clover-shaped loaf of bread and broke off two chunks.  We walked back to the boardwalk and found an available bench to eat our dinner in the setting sun.

When we'd finished eating we went to the bank of the river and hand fed the swans our bread crusts. An especially aggressive one bit my finger, and I can still feel the spot where he broke the skin.

Best Zurich dinner ever.

After a lazy walk back to the town center we caught the tram and bus back to the house. We took a few drinks from the communal refrigerator and sat on the balcony overlooking the city under the stars.

Tomorrow we're up early to leave for Vienna. We have a few remaining Swiss francs in our pockets, but I'm sure they'll escape us before the train pulls out of Zurich.