A Rainy Day in Zurich

I got a bit of a late start today, but I was determined to get out and do the sightseeing that I missed out on yesterday--rain or shine! As I ate breakfast this morning I made my plan of attack: take the train to the main station and and follow the self guided walking tour from Rick Steves' book before heading back to meet up with my tour group at 2:30pm. All was going well until the train inspector stopped to check my ticket. I proudly handed over my ticket thinking I was all good and then he began a long speech in German which I quite obviously understood none of. "English?" I asked. I consider myself to be a fairly savvy traveler, but somehow I missed that my ticket was only good for second class carriages and I had mistakenly followed the crowd onto a first class coach. Oops! I explained that I had made a mistake and that I would gladly change carriages when the train stopped, but the inspector would have none of this. In fact, he curtly pointed out that there are very clear rules here and that I most certainly have eyes and could read which train I was getting on, so he made me pay 10 CHF (about $10) to upgrade my ticket for a ten minute train ride in first class. No warning, no grace. He did ask where I was from and whether we had the same system in my country, to which I responded, NO! In America AND Korea we all sit together on the subway or light-rail with no first class. Deep breath, and moving on...oh the joys of traveling!:)

Unfortunately, it rained for the majority of the two hours I spent wandering around Zurich this morning, but that didn't dampen my spirits much. At the first marked point of interest on the tour, I ran into an American couple from Philadelphia armed with their Rick Steves' book too. I joined forces with Julie (or Janet...short term memory loss) and Jeff and we chatted and navigated our way through the streets of Zurich for the remainder of the tour. It turned out to be a lovely time as Mrs. J enjoyed exploring churches just as much as I did. There happened to be three very nice churches on today's walking tour--St. Peter's Church which has a clocktower with the largest clock face in all of the world (it's over 8 meters across) and where a wedding was about to take place, Grossmunster with two lovely belltowers and some very strange stained glass, and Fraumunster which has 5 beautiful stained glass windows designed and crafted by Marc Chagall. We also saw a beautiful floral ceiling in the police station and baffled the poor entry guard as to why we wanted to wander around the lobby, as well as a couple of nice gardens and many beautiful small streets with picturesque houses. Since it was raining, I decided to leave the DSLR camera at home so no photos from this mornings walk. I headed back to the hotel around 1:15 so I could grab a quick bite to eat and change clothes before meeting the group.

I had no idea who my tour group would be comprised of, but at 2:30pm I found out! We're a rather small group of just 26 people plus a tour director and a coach driver. It appears that there are 3 singles traveling alone, the rest are couples and I'd say the average age of this group is about 55-60. Yes, friends I'm traveling with the retirement crowd for the next nine days (with a few exceptions). Once the group was assembled we all boarded the coach and headed back into the city for a couple of hours of free time and thankfully it had stopped raining! This meant I could pull out the camera and take a few pictures to give you an idea of what Zurich looks like. In case you are wondering, it's not all businesses and banks! Once you hit the backstreets, Zurich is quite charming.



A fun surprise to come across this street emblazoned with Swiss flags and old style houses.


Statues and fountains abound in this city!


A street filled with fluttering, colorful flags.


Another fountain and all of the water is pure and drinkable!


A magical stairway to an equally lovely park filled with Linden trees.


More statues!


The view across the river. The green spire is Fraumunster church.


That's Grossmunster church towering over the rest of the buildings.


A beautiful spray of roses.


The two towers of Grossmunster church.

So far everyone seems lovely, even if I am the youngest in the group by a few years;). I had a wonderful time wandering about with a couple from Australia and my dinner partners tonight were fantastic--lots of stories and travels to share. Tomorrow we head south to Evian in France and along the way we'll stop in Berne, Montreaux, and visit Chillion Chateau.


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Location:Zurich, Switzerland