Beautiful Zürich

July 26, 2010
We arrived in Zürich from Interlaken to the welcoming flat of Rem and Christi. Rem was a member of Team USA with Cara at the World Games in Taiwan this past summer. Shortly after Taiwan, they moved from San Francisco for Christi's post-doc in super smart environmental science stuff.

Switzerland is another amazingly bike friendly country. Most trains had special places to store your bike for the trip so that when you arrived in your destination you were ready to ride from the train station. Zürich also had a free bike rental program and extensive bike lanes and bike specific signs throughout the city. For 20 swiss francs you were able to borrow a bike for the whole day. Upon return, you received your deposit back and could do this as often as you wanted.

We picked up our free bikes and rode into the city center for a walking tour of the sights. Our free iPhone app (recommended by Rem) provided the route and important information on all the landmarks we visitied. This was a great way to see the city and allowed us to do it at our own pace without a tour guide. It lead us through beautiful neighborhoods, past gorgeous buildings, and most importantly to the amazing sweet shop, Sprüngli.

As we were walking around we noticed a lot of fit looking people limping through the streets. Upon further inspection of their clothes we realized they were all finishers of the IronMan triathlon staged the day before. After emailing Dave to encourage him to put this race on his future training schedule, he informed me that he had just wrecked on his bike and broke his elbow which required surgery. We are hoping for his speedy recovery.

On our second day in town, Rem joined us for a visit to the Swiss National Museum. We needed to clear our heads after about 3 hours of reading and learning, so went for a swim in the Limmat River. A canal is built to the side of the river which provides a free public "lazy river" for the locals to use during the hotter months of the year. Because it was an overcast day and a bit chilly, Cara sat out this swimming endeavor and took some photos from the deck. Two floats was enough for Rem and me. That night we played pickup with the local frisbee club.

Huge thanks to Rem and Christi for opening up this amazing city to us. We didn't quite know what to expect of Zürich and came away impressed with the city's unique charm of narrow cobblestoned alleys as well as wide modern pedestrian shopping streets. It also doesn't hurt to be located on a beautiful lake in the mountains.



The clock of St. Peter's church, the largest clock face in Europe. It surprisingly didn't look that big, but was rather comely.



A view of the Limmat River looking towards Lake Zürich with Grossmünster on the left, the largest church in Zürich where the Protestant reformer Zwinli preached.



Luxemburgerli from Sprüngli. These little treats may look like mini sliders, but they in fact are melt in your mouth meringues with flavored filling in the middle; they were incredible. My favorite was the citrus, while Cara prefered vanilla bourbon.



One of Cara's many "window" shots. She seems to have mastered this technique on this trip.



A recent political poster on display in the Swiss National Museum, used to convince the Swiss to vote for a law that would prevent the building of minarets anywhere in the country. This law did pass. It was part of a larger exhibit on how the Swiss have been and are still very protective against immigrants and new culture. Before the trip, I always thought of the Swiss as innocent and friendly neutralists, but the museum gave some interesting things to consider about the Swiss mentality.



Rem and Christi, Our wonderful hosts, preparing the handmade dough for the best pizza we had on this two month trip. While food in Switzerland is wicked expensive, groceries are not bad. We gorged on salad, four different pizzas, and wine before playing "pants down" our new favorite Swiss card game introduced to us by Flo.



The Swiss National Museum. The most interesting thing I learned was about the important role the Swiss people played in furthering The Reformation, the Protestant movement begun by Martin Luther in Germany and championed by the Swiss Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and Guillaume Farel. They also had an interesting exhibit that talked about the worlds response after WWII towards Switzerland and their choice to remain neutral. And... you could also make your own Swiss Army Knife! They had one on display that was about a foot wide!



Floating down a canal of the Limmat River with Rem. Unfortunately, the sun was hiding behind clouds this day so our swim was not too long. Shortly after we shivered on the deck before heading back to the apartment.