We’re in Zurich this week, I’m here for work and Kat managed to get a week off work to relax and join me which certainly makes my traveling for work much more enjoyable.
We arrived yesterday (Saturday) in the late afternoon and found our hotel/apartment with no problems. After settling in I took Kat on a quick tour of the central city / lake area which I’d sort of explored on a previous visit last year. Our first impression, at around 6pm on a Saturday was how quiet and sparsely populated many of the streets in the center of town were, all the shops were closed and there weren’t really that many people around even at the lake front. We had dinner at a nice “Gratin” restaurant near the central train station, delicious food.
Today (Sunday) we took the train northwest out of Zurich to the town of Winterthur, Switzerland’s 6th largest city apparently. The town itself was absolutely deserted and quiet by normal standards, Sunday in Switzerland is definitely not a day for shopping or anything that requires interaction with a store of any kind. Luckily for us, the object of our visit was the Swiss Photomuseum which is open on a Sunday and we spent an enjoyable hour or two browsing an exhibition of Walker Evans’ work along with a couple of other exhibitions.
After a quick lunch at an Italian restaurant (delicious pizza baked in front of us) we hopped on another train, (Switzerland’s public transport is awesome, if a little pricey), and journeyed a bit further north to the Rhine Falls which are apparently the largest in Europe. They were impressive, but if that’s the best Europe has to offer it’s doing pretty badly. Huka Falls are at least competitive with the Rhine Falls in my opinion. We took a bunch of photos, and a boat ride to a rock right in the middle of the falls where we could see the water cascading down on either side and feel the spray making us and my camera somewhat wet…
We eventually headed back to the train via a nice riverside walk and returned to Zurich via a round-about route via some small rural train stations that a friendly ticket seller in Winterthur had arranged for us to minimise the cost of our overall trip!
I’m off to work tomorrow and Kat has a week of shopping (window only I hope) and relaxing planned for herself.
Comment from Gill on 2009-07-20
Go Kat. Sounds like my idea of an accompanying visit. He earns, you spend!
Comment from Mike on 2009-07-20
ah the Rhine Falls … you didn’t take the opportunity to kayak them? Tis a pity, they are a far harder prospect in a kayak then Huka Falls!
Comment from matt on 2009-07-21
There certainly were a few more rocks poking around before and after… sadly I’m nowhere near as proficient or adventurous in a kayak as you may be!