Getting Our Steps in Zurich

Way back when we first learned that Claire was moving to Switzerland, we decided that we would have to visit her there. Scott had never been to Switzerland, and I’d only been to Geneva and Zermatt — there was a lot more to see! We solidified our trip and picked the places we would visit a long time before going, but we didn’t get too deep into planning activities in each of the places, so in some respects it was a similar trip to New Zealand. It was also our first multi-week vacation since New Zealand 😱 , so it made us think back to that trip a lot.

We had a direct flight from SFO to Zurich on Swiss Air (which we can’t really recommend…), and we arrived in Zurich in the late afternoon, feeling tired but up for some walking and fresh air. It was a beautiful Friday evening, and we walked from our hotel in old town along the river to the lake and then along the lakeshore. There were tons and tons of people out enjoying the summer evening after work. They were swimming, having drinks or a barbecue in the park, going to the outdoor cinema, playing with their dogs…we were immediately onboard with the vibe in Zurich. We had dinner that night in old town near our hotel (ask us about the embarrassing oil and vinegar incident), and by the end of the meal I was practically falling asleep at the table, so we called it a night and went to bed.

Saturday was supposed to be the best weather day of our time in Zurich, so we decided to start off with a boat cruise down the lake. It was a very warm day, so it was great to be out on the water, and we loved seeing all the towns along the lakeshore. Our destination was a town called Rapperswil, which turned out to be remarkably scenic, complete with a castle on a hill surrounded by vineyards and old Swiss houses. We had lunch and walked around there before taking the train back to Zurich and then partway up Uetliberg, Zurich’s little home mountain. After a little bit of walking, past some interesting statues that you can see below, we reached a great view down over the city and the lake. We set off from there on a hike along the Panoramaweg (Panorama trail #1 of the trip), which took us along the ridge from Uetliberg, through some forest, some farms, some corn fields. We got caught in a strong downpour for about 20 minutes, but were luckily prepared with our raincoats. Afterwards the sun came out again, and there was a lovely rainbow over Lake Zurich. Our hike ended at a gondola (the Swiss have gondolas/trams/cable cars/trains everywhere in the mountains!) that took us down to lake level from the ridge, where we caught a train back to the city center. That evening we had a simple dinner of döner by the river and joined the locals for some evening hangout time in a hillside park overlooking the river and old town.

The next morning we had plans to meet up with our friends Lynzy and Jeremiah and their two kids for brunch. Scott worked with Lynzy at Google several years ago, and Jeremiah now works for Google in Zurich. They took us to a fun little English farm pub and then we walked around the green space and neighborhoods nearby. We learned all about their first few months of living in Zurich and got a tour of the Google office. We parted ways so that Scott and I could visit the National Museum, which didn’t seem like a very kid-friendly activity. Turns out, it wasn’t a very Lockbird friendly activity either. We couldn’t find anything interesting to look at in the museum, so after a frustrating time trying to read their map and find their various exhibits, we went back outside to walk along the river and enjoy a beer overlooking some houses in old town. That evening we went to a very lovely, very tourist-y restaurant for fondue. It was delicious and Swiss and exactly what we hoped for, though we only learned weeks later, at the end of our trip, how to pronounce the name of the restaurant and what it meant. We were already struggling with Swiss German as compared to the High German we’d both studied, and we didn’t stand a chance at making any headway until we had Claire’s help later in the trip!

All in all, we really enjoyed Zurich and would definitely come back again. These first few days also set a tone of lots of walking this trip — Scott has a watch that tracks his steps, and its recommended goal for him is 10,000 steps a day. We easily surpassed that in Zurich and decided it might be possible to hit it each day of our trip ;)

After we left Zurich, we headed to Bern by way of Basel… those photos coming next!