Advertisement
Published: March 24th 2010
Edit Blog Post
I spent a wonderful 3-day weekend in Switzerland to visit my friend, Isabelle, who I met while she was on exchange last year at Queen's.
I arrived in Zurich on Thursday night and Isabelle picked me up at the airport because she lives in Winkel, which is a town that's only about ten minutes away from the airport. Once we got back to Isabelle's house, I met and talked to her father and brother and planned my visit in Switzerland with Isabelle.
The next morning I went with Isabelle to Zurich. Isabelle had a class to go to in the morning, so I went down the popular shopping street, Bahnhofstrasse, and then wandered around the city while Isabelle was at class. Isabelle met me at noon in the city and we grabbed a Swiss sausage and some drinks and went to Lake Zurich to eat lunch. It was such a beautiful day in Zurich - 20 degrees - and it was so nice to sit at the lake and eat our lunch while looking across the lake at the Alps!
After lunch we went to Zurich University, where Isabelle attends school. We walked around the campus and she showed
me the buildings where she has classes. Zurich University is up on the hill, so we had to take the tram elevator down to the city. Once down to the main city, we went to the Wasserkirche, or Water Church, which was once entirely surrounded by the river and Isabelle had a key so that we could go underneath the church to see the old tombs. We then went to the Grossmunster, which is a large 12th-century Roman cathedral in the centre of Zurich, and we climbed up the tower to get a beautiful panoramic view of the city. Isabelle and I went across the river to see the Fraumünster church that was built before 874. This church houses the famous stained glass choir windows by Marc Chagall. We saw St. Peter with the largest church clock face in the world and then walked up to Lindenhof Hill. This is a large moraine hill and a public square that overlooks the river and where Isabelle told me that people used to be hanged in medieval times. Although the view wasn't quite as spectacular as the view from the cathedral tower, we still had a beautiful view of the city and
Zurich
St. Peter is in the distance and it has the largest church clock face in the world the Swiss Alps. Walking back towards central station, we passed a little bakery and I tried Luxemburgerlis, which is a type of Swiss confectionery that is similar to a macaroon but it has a sugar-based biscuit top and bottom with a rich cream filling in the center. They were SO delicious!
We then headed back to Winkel and Isabelle's mom had prepared a delicious Swiss dinner for us.
The next day we woke up early, picked up a couple of Isabelle's friends (one of whom was actually from Canada) and we drove for an hour to Lucerne. Lucerne is a city in central Switzerland that is very close to Mount Pilatus, Rigi, Titlis, and the Swiss Alps and it is also located right on the shore of Lake Lucerne. We spent the morning walking around the city and it was SO beautiful! I couldn't stop looking at the mountains! Lucern is such a beautiful city and then when you add the snow peaked mountains as a backdrop, it's just picture perfect! We went to the Lucerne market and went to the Chapel Bridge (Kapellbrücke), a 669 foot long wooden bridge originally built in 1333, although much of it had
to be replaced after a fire on August 18, 1993, allegedly caused by a discarded cigarette. Partway across, the bridge runs by the octagonal Water Tower (Wasserturm), a fortification from the 13th century. Inside the bridge are a series of paintings from the 17th century depicting events from Lucerne's history. The Bridge with its Tower is the city's most famous landmark. We also saw the Lion Monument in Lucerne, which is a carving that commemorates the hundreds of Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when the mob stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris.
Around 1:00pm, we drove for about 30 minutes outside of Lucerne to get to Mount Titlis. We took three cable cars to get to the top of the mountain - one of which is the world's first revolving cable car. The Titlis is a mountain in the Urner Alps of Switzerland. The cable car system connects Engelberg to the summit of Klein Titlis (3,028 m) through the three stages of Gerschnialp (1,262 m), Trübsee (1,796 m) and Stand (2,428 m). Isabelle's friends had packed a picnic lunch and we ate it on the way up the mountain.
At the top of Titlis
there is a glacier and visitors are able to go inside the glacier cave. After going to the top, taking some pictures and seeing the glacier, we took one cable car down and went snow tubing and sledding. It was tons of fun and they had some interesting sleds that we fun to try. After a great day in the mountains, we headed back to Isabelle's house and had Swiss fondue for dinner and it was delicious!
On Sunday we slept in a bit, had a nice leisurely breakfast, and then drove to Schaffhausen - a medieval northern city in Switzerland, close to the German border. The old portion of Schaffhausen has many fine Renaissance era buildings decorated with exterior frescos and sculpture. It also has an impressive old canton fortress, the Munot, which Isabelle and I climbed to the top of. Once seeing the city, we drove to the nearby Rhine Falls (it's the Rhine river from Germany coming into Switzerland), which is Europe's largest waterfall. Isabelle and I had lunch at a neighbouring village of Winkel, and then it was time for me to head back to the airport and catch my flight to Brussels.
I
had an amazing time in Switzerland with Isabelle! It is definitely among my top places that I would like to go back and visit and it's one of my favourite places that I have been to so far - something about those Swiss Alps is so majestic and breathtaking!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.498s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 10; qc: 48; dbt: 0.1337s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb