Zurich - 2017

As we arrived at the Zurich rail station, it took a few minutes to figure out the walking direction to the Intercontinental Hotel Mgallery Sofitel Hotel. Once there, we found the hotel lobby had comfortable furnishings but as soon as we entered the small elevator, it was apparent that this was an older hotel, likely constructed in the early 1990s. A tripadvisor reviewer suggested the hotel's exterior had the appearance of an older Soviet bloc building. Our room condition was fine for a two night stay but had a dated Swiss style – heavy thick but lightly stained wood furniture, heavy wood armoire and room trim was against stark white walls. The non-smoking room also had a musty odor and we couldn't tell if the source was the room or cleaning products. 

Zurich Rail Station

Zurich on a Sunday

Once settled in our room, we headed out for a walking tour of the Old Town and a lunch at the Sprungli Cafe. As we walked down Banhoffstrass, it soon became apparent that retail stores close on Sunday and the downtown sidewalks was somewhat deserted. In fact, as we reached Sprungli, we realized that only the Sprungli café and restaurant were open and the chocolate and Luxemburgerli counters were closed. Not to be detoured, we decided to stop for lunch, splitting a club sandwich and flaky ham pastry with salads, beer and iced tea (about $62USD).

Courtesy of www.spruengli.ch

On our way back to the hotel, we visited the Fraumunster Church. Entry was $5 per person and included use of an audio player. The player was a great help in describing the history of the church and the meanings behind the beautiful Giacometti and Chagall stained glass windows.  We continued our walk to view the interior of the Grossmunster. Again, we enjoyed seeing the stained glass windows of Augusta Giacometti and the Sigmar Polke windows added in 2009. Leaving Grossmunster, we walked through the Niederdorfstrasse restaurant and shopping area to reach our hotel.

For dinner, we decided to take a very casual approach. We picked up a green salad, roasted chicken pieces, rolls, dessert and drinks from the Migros Take Away and COOP Take Away stores located at the Zurich Rail Station (about $40USD).  We brought our selections to our hotel room and ate there.

Last Tourist Day in Switzerland

At 9:30am, we started our walk in the Old Town to see some sights we missed on Sunday. Our first stop was to activate our ZurichCard ($48 for two passes), which would provide us museum access and rail transportation for the next 24 hours.  We needed a ZurichCard as our 8-day Swiss rail passes expired the day before. The streets on Monday were active with people touring and going to work. This was a vastly different view compared to Sunday when the downtown streets and sidewalks were practically empty. 

After some time searching for and locating the kiosk to activate our ZurichCard, our first stop was the police station. The police station lobby, once an orphanage, has bright colorful murals painted by Augusta Giacometti. Lucky that we had some personal identification as the police officer required us to show it in order to enter the lobby area.

Photos are not allowed in the police station.
This photo came from Flickr

From there we walked to St. Peter, the oldest church in Zurich. With a somewhat plain white interior, we enjoyed hearing organ practice while viewing the soaring ceilings. We continued our walk over to the nearby Paradeplatz Sprungli’s café. Purchasing sandwiches and pastries for lunch ($30) at the Sprungli retail counter, we sat at the outdoor tables and ordered coffee and a cappuccino. Afterwards, we selected five boxes of custom chocolates for gifts and six Luxembourgli for us to enjoy later.

After lunch, we headed over to the Zurich rail station to catch a train to Uetliberger. This train ride takes only 20 minutes from downtown Zurich. Once we disembarked at the Uetliberger station, we were rewarded with terrific views of Zurich downtown and Lake Zurich.

Our afternoon outings were not yet complete. Upon returning to the Zurich rail station, we purchased some additional chocolates for family and friends. Given the warm temperatures, we quickly brought the chocolates back to our air-conditioned room.

Our final stop was the Beyer Watch Museum, near Paradeplatz. There, we enjoyed viewing ancient time devices, old wall clocks, pocket watches and wrist watches. The tour took us about 45 minutes and we then walked over to the Manor Department Store’s Manora Restaurant – which is really a pretty average buffet. While buffet is really busy at lunch (we checked it our earlier in the day), this restaurant looked deserted at 6pm. The food offerings which looked really fresh at noon, appeared a little tired by early evening. 

Leaving Zurich

With an early morning flight from Zurich to Heathrow, we packed the evening before. Since we would miss the hotel breakfast buffet that was part of our room package, we were offered room service breakfast at 5:30am at no additional charge.

At 6:50am, we left the hotel for our ten minute walk to the rail station and caught the 7:14 train to Zurich airport. We made our way to the Aspire Lounge, a generic first and business lounge. Departing Zurich on time, we had a two hour layover at Heathrow, before our flight to San Jose, California. The layover actually extended to three hours due to an engine issue. That was fine with most of the passengers (especially with those without San Jose flight connections to consider) as engine problems over the Atlantic can certainly add unwanted excitement.