The land of chocolate, banks, watches and trams

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My last city change dragging my ever full suitcase was straightforward and despite being a 3 hour train journey felt like it passed quickly due to a quiet carriage and a conductor who constantly handed out miniature bags of haribo bears. Hell you don’t get this treatment on the virgin train to London Euston, you’re lucky if you even get a seat on that thing. Anyway, I digress. Zurich main station is a beautiful building although very confusing as it seems to have 54 platforms!!!! I since have discovered that it only has 18 and then they just to the 50’s for some reason and these platforms are so far away from the main station they may as well be in a separate city. I negotiated the tram right outside which headed in the direction of my hotel, I then found myself at a junction of roads, tramlines and not a clue in hell which way I was going. Vaguely recalling a map I had looked at before setting off I headed in the correct direction luckily and found my hotel lurking half way up the road. Checked in and then headed back out to buy a strip of tram tickets that could be used over a number of days and headed towards the lake… nothing like water to make you feel good in the sunshine eh? The lakeside is beautiful there’s no denying it, however, the hour and half boat trip I took was actually really boring, not a lot to see and it was crammed full of annoying kids. And now for another of my pet hates about travelling… children!!! They should be banned from travelling unless in little pods where other children are and no adults at all…or they should be bound and gagged so I don’t have to witness their poor behaviour. Rant over… sorry to those of you with kids. A good chuck of the city is given over to shopping, not one of my favourite pastimes and something that shocked me more were the amount of designer stores and private jewellers selling diamonds and the infamous Swiss watches. The other thing you can’t escape here are the banks… I guess what makes you famous are to be found in abundance. The old town is, however, charming and being built around the waterside of the main river flowing into the lake, it’s picturesque and has plenty of lovely views. The Swiss seem to be people who enjoy the outdoors and there are numerous cafes, benches and areas to sit and watch the world go by, nice when the weather is so hot as it has been whilst I have been here. I took a sightseeing tour on an old trolleybus…. Sounds quaint but was in actual fact quite uncomfortable and you couldn’t always see high up and given that the city has many beautiful churches and high buildings it wasn’t ideal. It did give me a clear understanding of the layout of the old town allowing me to walk most of it afterwards. Everything is very close to each other and even the little alleyways lead onto each other. I took the funicular ‘polybahn’ up to the university buildings and there are some lovely views over the city from there. The one thing Zurich has going for it over most other places I have been on this holiday is the tram system. There are so many tram lines and you never have to wait more than a minute or two. It’s like the tube but even more convenient as its above ground and easy to see where you are going. After paying for a very expensive set of tickets though and never being checked once I feel quite aggrieved. If that was England, everyone would fare dodge… maybe the Swiss are more honest… or they are mugs!

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