Monday, September 11, 2006

Zürich

<insert obligatory apology for not updating in too long here>

That unpleasantry out of the way with, let's throw up some pictures of our short stay in Zürich, the capital city of world banking. Let me tell you, this place definitely felt rich. The prices everywhere reflected this, as this was one of the most expensive parts of our stay.

It also was the time where Jac and I celebrated our first anniversary. We stayed in a hostel/hotel called "Martahaus" and thoroughly enjoyed a night's reprieve from camping! To make things even sweeter, that happened to be the night of one of the two torrential downpours we experienced on the whole trip. While my fellow travellers were beseeching the Lord's mercy, I just reached over and closed the window. :P

On with the show:

martahausHere's me standing in front of the Martahaus Hotel where we stayed for the night of our anniversary, right in the heart of old town Zürich.
migrosThis is fast food - European style. This place was run by a major grocery retailer called Migros and it operates solely as a take-away eatery. The only difference is that the food is actually good, (somewhat) healthy and made fresh. These things are everywhere and this is how the locals eat on the go. You'll never see any suckers other than tourists paying around $10 for a Big Mac combo. Idiots. And note that Europeans even do a good job of design even though Migros is Switzerland's largest grocery chain. Could you imagine Superstore or Safeway making quality space like this? We demand too little...
polybahnHere's a fun little sight less than a block away from our hotel: The Polybahn is a funicular that runs up the steep hill from the old city to the University. And it comes right out of the building and up and over the street! It sure was surprising the first time we saw it.
zurich night skyHere's a night shot looking into Zürich's old city. The twin "saltshaker" domes of the Grossmünster can be seen on the right. Christian history buffs may be interested to know that it was where Ulrich Zwingli preached his Reform message.
fondueAnd here's me, enjoying some delectable Swiss fondue to celebrate our anniversary. It was incredible.

3 Comments:

At 11:22 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

"funicular" : A railway up the side of a mountain.

Go figure.

Zwingly definitely has the funnest name in Protestant history.

John Chrysostom, the "golden mouth" gets my vote for coolest name in Christian history.

 
At 12:12 AM, Blogger Jac said...

zurich was definitely one of my favorite places.
but oh so expensive.
the city is not huge -- 366 000 residents (just over half the size of winnipeg)
but it boasts the most amazing transit systems. there are four forms of public transit -- the city buses, the street cars, the funicular, and water bus transit.
ALSO -- this is the best -- the city loans out free bikes to anyone! you just give a deposit and you can pedal to your hearts content. so of course many students, us included, took advantage of this.
oh oh AND it is the city that birthed the famous dada movement of art.

 
At 5:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello I'm here by chance and I started to look at your blog. I see that you travel a lot. Nice. I'm from Europe so the most places which you shown I know. Exactly I'm from Poland. It's also beautiful country so maybe you will arrive here next time? I reccomend Poland. So some words to farewell in polish :) :
Zapraszam do Polski choc to nie wielki kraj kryje w sobie mnostwo przepieknych miejsc. Pozdrawiam!

 

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