I have a confession to make: despite having lived an hour from Zürich for the past months, I had never actually made it further than the airport until last week. Two Colombian friends had come to Switzerland as part of their Europe-tour, so I really had no excuses not to see them (and Zürich) before they went on to Prague. Zürich is a scarily expensive city, probably because it is a large banking area and home to the leading gold and precious metals trading market. Despite this, it is possible to make it cheaper by taking a packed lunch and spending the whole day outside wandering through the streets.
Zürich is divided in half by the River Limmat, which leads down to the Zürichsee. The centre of Zürich is actually quite small (though perhaps we only went through the Old Town), particularly when one considers that Zürich is Switzerland's largest city!
I think living in Konstanz may have given me a new found competitiveness about lakes. Lake Zürich has been certified by Swiss authorities as clean enough to drink from, but I think I still prefer my Bodensee (especially when going for a sunrise swim in it with friends).
Zürich is suprisingly green for a city and we spent quite a few hours lazing about in the sunshine in several of the parks. If nothing else, I did get in some good people watching...
Of course, no good Swiss town is complete without a selection of churches. If I remember rightly, this is the Grossmünster, which had soimething to do with the Swiss-German reformation many years ago:
Naturally Zürich has more going for it than parks and churches, and in our adventure through the old town, we also came across Cabaret Voltaire, where the Dada art movement was born and a house where Lenin lived prior to returning to Russia for the revolution.
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