This past weekend, Steve and I spent 3 days in Zurich, Switzerland. We had heard a few things about Zurich ahead of time… 1. It is consistently rated #1, or close to it, for best quality of life in the world; 2. The natural beauty is insane! and 3. It is expensive. Although I can’t speak for #1 (but I can definitely see how this could be possible), we found #’s 2 and 3 to definitely be true with the lush green grass and plants, the beautiful Lake Zurich and Limmat River, amazing hiking right in its backyard, and the $36 cheese fondue.
On Friday, we got on an early morning flight and immediately began sightseeing when we arrived. Our first stop was the top of Zurich’s mini mountain, Uetliberg for some views over Lake Zurich and the city. On a clear day, you can see the Alps, but we weren’t so lucky. The views were still incredible! We took the train up to the top and only had to hike about 10 minutes to get to the lookout point. We brought sandwiches and chilled out here for a while!
When we were done at Uetliberg, we hiked/jogged from Uetliberg to Felsenegg (about 3.5 miles), which offered more good views of the lake and the surrounding countryside.
On day #2, we did a full day excursion to Lucerne and the Alps, specifically Mount Titlis. The first stop for the bus was a quick one at the base of Mount Rigi. There wasn’t enough time to take the cable car to the top, but we snapped a few photos from the parking lot. The lake at the base of the mountains looks so serene!
The next stop was Lucerne, where we had about an hour to walk around the main area. We walked across the Chapel Bridge and through the backroads, and checked out the Lion’s Monument, which our tour guide deemed the saddest monument in the world.
The last stop was Mount Titlis. Unfortunately for us, we picked a horrible day weather-wise to head to the top of this mountain. Going into the weekend, we were most excited for this – the mountain is about 10,000 feet high, and there is a fun park for sledding/tubing as well as a suspension bridge with unreal views (or so we hear). We got to the top, and just saw white. There was freezing rain, we were in a cloud, and could barely see 10 feet ahead. We made the most of it. We took the cable car to the stop and watched the green turn to white. There is an Ice Flyer, which is essentially a ski lift, that we took a ride on. We went sledding, which was extra scary because you couldn’t see the bottom of the hill. You were pretty much just sliding into the abyss with no idea what was to come. There was also a glacier cave which luckily wasn’t affected by the bad weather – it was cool!
On the last day, we explored Zurich. Unfortunately again, it was rainy and cloudy, so everything was a bit more dreary than we’d imagined. We walked the paths around Lake Zurich. We visited a few of the famous churches – St. Peterskirche, Fraumunster and Grossmunster (which we climbed to the top of, the views were great!). We also walked through the Old Town and ate some of that expensive cheese fondue mentioned above (so worth it!).
Although the weather wasn’t great this time, we still had a fun first trip to Switzerland! We still feel like we haven’t properly seen the Swiss Alps, so I guess we’ll just have to go back some day : )
The Great Fekspedition 