Zurich

Three days in to our holiday and this is the first chance I've had to update the blog. We've been a little bit busy.

We few directly to Zurich and arrived about 7.00 am suffering from sleep deprivation but thankfully Glenn was there to meet us and we didn't need to think about transport connections.

Limmat River, Zurich

After freshening up we headed straight into to city for the day. Who would have thought?? Zurich was hot and humid, mid thirties and very humid. It was a shock after the cold Victorian winter. Zurich locals and tourists were out in force along the shore of the beautiful lake, sunbathing, swimming, boating.

One of the first things we noticed as we walked from the tram station to the city was a florist with an familiar plant for sale, Leucophyta brownii Cushion Bush, that grows along the south coast of Victoria.

The Old Zurich buildings are beautiful, lovely laneways branch off in all directions tempting the unwary the unwary tourist to lose sense of direction, architectural details on almost every building slow progress to snails pace/

Coffee grinder

Small museum in an underground carparknear the opera house.
It records the results of archeological work undertaken during the construction
 of the car park. They found evidence of human occupation in the different layers.

Some of the stone tools found during the dig.

Extra large soap bubbles provided by an entertainer on the lake's foreshore.

We explored sections of the old town and then walked a kilometre or two along the edge of the lake to the casino. No, not to gamble. There is a small jetty there and we boarded a small ferry that travels from there to several other jetties on the lake and then up the Zimmat River through the beautiful Old Town of Zurich.

Keeping time

The Uhrenmuseum is a private collection of clocks and watches and to find it you have to go in to the Beyer shop in the most prestigious shopping street in Zurich, the Bahnhofstrasse (look for the big clock outside). The Beyer family has been in the watch and clock business since 1760 and the collection is one of the best in the world.

The labels are written in German but the items were beautifully arranged on chronological order and well lit. The friendly staff member gave us a published book that had an English explanation of some of the items, and she also set some of the automation clocks going for us. There were also several computer screens showing some of the clocks working and playing the sounds they make. We found the watch worn by Hillary when he climbed Everest, the smallest pendulum clock in the world (with the Guinness Book of Records certificate to prove it), old oil clocks, hourglasses, scientific clocks, fob watches, table clocks and pendulum clocks. The intricate workmanship was astonishing.

Zurich again

Museums were on the agenda today. There are over 40 in Zurich but we only went to three.

First, the Museum of Design (Museum für Gestaltung Zürich). They had two exhibitions, one on global design influences (on architecture, fashion, communication, shopping, industrial design) - think Ikea, Mars, PET plastic - and one on the use of Swiss motifs in poster advertising over the last century - think mountains, cows, cheese, red and white, white cross, chocolate. We enjoyed our visit to this museum.

Then we went to the Landesmuseum. We went particularly to see the history of Switzerland displays but, after we'd bought out tickets, we were told that that floor was closed. We thought we'd wasted our money but it turned out to be a fantastic place to explore for two or three hours. We saw an exhibition of the work of Swiss photographers over the last century and a half, we saw an excellent display of old coins presented with touch screen explanations of the designs and flip-side photos as well, we saw a table-top mockup of the Battle of Morat in 1476 using 6000 tin soldiers, we saw rooms full of arms, armour and uniforms of soldiers, costumes over the centuries, displays of religious embroideries, carved icons, painted glass and stained glass, alters and ceramics, shoes, silverware and more. It's a fantastic museum and the building was interesting as well..

And the third museum was a toy museum called Spielzeugmuseum, a collection put together by the owner of a local toy shop that's been in business since the 1800s. Yes there were dolls and doll houses but they were really old and elaborate, and there were antique trains, steam engines, puppets, stuffed animals, books, rocking horses and toy soldiers.

We've been down to the edge of the lake only once but it's such a dominant part of Zurich we'll probably go for a boat ride one day. And we've been to see a church, the Grossmunster - its long history is closely connected to the Swiss Reformation. The photo is from the church's cloister, a beautiful haven, another surprise in a city full of surprises - just open a big and heavy door and you're there.

More surprises - the stylish public phone booths come complete with defribrillation units, and Miss Hilton isn't the only young lady who carries her pet dog in a handbag.

Zurich

On Monday morning we bought day tickets (8 Ch, all day on all types of transport), went into Zurich city centre by tram and walked the streets of the old town. It took us all day to explore a few of the delightful old laneways on the east bank of the Limmat River and several on the west bank. There were surprises around every corner and I loved it all.

One lane opened onto a garden and I noticed a sign on one of the houses (above) stating that Lenin lived in the house in 1916/1917. Last night I read on the internet that his wife mentioned in her memoirs that they couldn't open the windows during the day because of the smell from the sausage factory nearby. It was all very pleasant when we were there. There were a lot of other plaques for important people elsewhere as well but I didn't recognise any of the names.

The first photo above was taken from a garden on the west bank called Lindenhof. Men were playing chess and petanque under the lime trees and because it's on a hill the view is magnificent.

As we walked back home from the tramstop we noticed a little Mercedes smart car parked very smartly. And see how you're allowed to park both ways in Europe? Why don't we do that in Aus?