| Home |
| Pretty, But Pricey...We're in Switzerland! | |
|
09/01/06 - Zurich, Switzerland (Switzerland photo album) Passing a pleasant travel-day afternoon in beautiful Switzerland |
|
|
After a relaxing train ride out of Munich (for the first time
ever, no confusion, mishaps or general travel-day madness
and mayhem), we arrived in Zurich this afternoon. We had
really just planned to be in Zurich as an evening stopover on
our way to the Alps, but we had taken an early train and it was
finally a beautiful, warm, sunny afternoon, so we decided
to have a look around the city center before venturing on to our
hotel. (The luxurious Marriott Residence business hotel that we
booked for the night and got a great weekend rate on was out by
the airport.) We quickly changed some euros for Swiss
francs, stashed our bags in the handy train station lockers and
hit the streets.
Zurich's city center surprised us by looking pretty much like every other mid-sized European city (we both thought it would look more like a big, modern financial center) and, although quaint and pleasant enough, was not particularly attractive...and then we arrived at the waterfront. Along the nice walking promenade, the clear, clean water positively sparkled in the sunlight and you could see snow-capped mountains in the distance at the far end of the lake. It was breathtaking. Everybody was out enjoying the weather; we saw men in business suits sharing a bottle of champagne at a waterfront cafe and lots of locals were sitting on the many benches near the water or were in bathing suits (and a couple young ladies simply stripped down to their underwear), lounging on the grass and on the floats out in the water. Even though we ate lunch at our most expensive McDonald's yet (the equivalent of almost $10 usd for Caroline's regular hamburger and medium fries and drink! - it's research, don't you know!) it turned into a lovely and pleasantly surprising way to spend a travel-day afternoon. |
|
