Day 2-- Zurich walking tour

The last leg of the flight was long but rather uneventful.. I slept some, and squirmed in my seat and just passed the time. When we were about an hour away, the cabin staff served breakfast, which was not advertised in the literature we had, so it was a surprise. We were given a banana and a “egg/muffin” thing that was hot and filling.

Customs was easy—stand in the right line, give the man your passport, go get baggage, go through a door that says “nothing to declare” and we were in Zurich.
We were met by the owner of the travel agency who arranged the trip for us. Carmen, the travel agency owner gave each of us a gift bag which contained a box of chocolates, a beautiful little book of scenic pictures and a Swiss Army knife with our name engraved on it. She and the driver took our bags and offered us champagne (I put orange juice in mine) while we listened to two gentlemen playing Alphorns specifically hired to serenade us. We took their pictures (and lots of other folks did too) and were on the way to our hotel.



After getting settled, we began our walking tour of the city with Kurt, our tour guide and driver while we are here.

The pilot had said that the temp outside was 37 degrees and I was sooooo thankful to have brought my long wool coat, which in Texas I wear- Oh, I don't know, maybe- twice a year.

I have to look in the windows of some of the stores to know what they are selling because of their German names, but "linenhaus" is fairly obvious. I found a Starbucks where I hope to go this evening or tomorrow morning to download this since the hotel St. Gotthard has no wireless internet and the wired is rather expensive. For the price of a $5 cup of tea I can do the surfing I want at Starbucks for no extra charge.

Kurt told us that Zurich has 1500 fountains and all have water good for drinking and altho’ we didn’t see all 1500 we did see quite a few. He said that periodically the water is checked by some little crustaceans which are very sensitive to anything unhealthy in the water.

We saw Roman ruins (bath house) , Roman fountains, the place where the Lindenhoff castle was in 30 BC, a huge train station, river and lake, we walked through a high school and technical university, like none I’ve ever seen before. Huge and ancient, but still used. Einstein taught and studied here at one time.


We saw parks and gardens along a walkway in Zurich




We went into 2 churches- Fraumunster (was a convent built for the king’s daughter Hildeguard) had stained glass windows designed by Marc Chagal at the age of 83. Rather “modern” type of art with the 5 long narrow windows each being predominantly one color---red, blue, green, yellow and blue again. The second church was Grossmunster where we visited the crypt. At one time it had enjoyed lovely colored paintings (frescoes) on the walls. They no longer exist, and no one knows whether the Prostestants destroyed the paintings, or the elements, smoke from the fireplace dimmed them. I'm hoping it wasn't the Protestants,altho' it is a possibility in the rush to eliminate all "Popery"
Monastery garden



We rode a cable car and the city tram (large buses) and then came back to the hotel. We rested up some, changed shoes and went out in search of LUPPER (lunch and supper). We found a place which was recommended in a guide book where the food was good, but the bread could have been used as a weapon. This bread- 3 large rolls cost $3 per roll. We ate and on the way back stopped at a toy/ candy store with a slide from the ground floor to the basement that looked like a dragon. The kids were loving it.



More tomorrow--downloading this in Starbucks having walked 8 blocks and ordered my cup of English breakfast tea. definitely worth $5.