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| Zurich |
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| Luzern |
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| Bern |
Zurich
Arrival at Zurich airport was pretty smooth. Following the signs to the train station, we bought tickets for Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich HB). The tickets were for a 1-hour period, not a specific train; you just get on any train headed to Zurich HB. The trolleys were less intuitive than the rail; we spent too much time trying to find our destination on the machine, despite it being the main train station (user error I’m sure). We stayed at the Marriott which is just a 10-minute walk from the station.
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| Bonhofstrasse garden |
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| Neiderdorf square |
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View of Neiderdorf
from Lindenhof |
Rick Steves has a great walking tour of Zurich, starting at the train station and following bustling Bahnhofstrasse into the old town. On Bahnhofstrasse is the flagship location of Sprungli coffee shops, which is great for coffee, pastries or a limoncello spritz.
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| Muenstehof square |
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| Zurih old town |
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| St Peter's church |
Zurich has over one thousand fountains, each spouting potable water that is delicious, owing to the mineral content and purity of melting snow. Schipfe street was the original harbor of medieval Zurich, and has small shops and restaurants. From the water, we climbed up to the Lindenhof, a beautiful park on a bluff overlooking the Limmat River and the Neiderdorf neighborhood. Descending back into the old town, we stopped at St. Peter’s Church, which is Zurich’s oldest and has one of the largest clock faces in Europe. We stopped at the Storck hotel bar for a drink overlooking the river.
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| Fountain in old town |
Crossing the Limmat, we walked through the winding streets of the Neiderdorf neighborhood. There are numerous squares with cafes, and the house where Vladimir Lenin lived in exile in 1916, before returning to Russia in 1917 to lead the Bolshevik Revolution. Zeughauskeller beer hall is in a former armory built in 1487 and reputed to have stored William Tell's crossbow - totally plausible.
The Grossmuenster Cathedral is where Huldrych Zwingli brought Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation to Switzerland in 1519. He initiated reforms that eliminated all Catholic doctrine, relying solely on the Bible for religious guidance. Zwingli published the first German-language Bible to empower the masses. The French-speaking cantons of Switzerland remained Catholic and revolted against the Protestant Reformation of the German-speaking cantons, leading to a civil war in 1531. The Catholics prevailed, but could not stop the spread of Protestantism, led by John Calvin in Geneva.
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| Muensterhof |
The Fraumunster dates from 1250, and contains beautiful stained glass windows by Marc Chagall (the original Catholic stained-glass windows were destroyed by Zwingli iconoclasts in 1524). Nearby, Muensterhof square is lined with former guild halls. We stopped at the famous Sprungli cafe before heading down Bahnhofstrasse to the Lake Zurich waterfront.
Landesmuseum has an excellent exhibit covering the 800-year history of Switzerland. It's well curated, and has English explanations throughout.
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| Landesmuseum |
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Commander-in-chief
uniform (1512) |
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| Carriage |
Bern
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| Cathedral |
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| Government quarter |
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| Bern Zytglogge |
Bern is a one-hour train ride from Zurich. The trains (and restaurants, and other things) are expensive in Switzerland, about $70 per person each way to Bern. We took the Rick Steves walking tour, which provides a greet overview of this beautiful town.
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| Kramgasse view of Zutglogge |
Bern's buildings are made of local gray-green limestone, creating a sense of uniformity across the city. It looks like a different country compared to the half-timbered building of Zurich and Luzern.
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| Kornhauskeller |
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| Kornhausplatz fountain |
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| Child-eating ogre |
From the train station to Baren (Bear) Platz, with the impressive Parliament Building behind which is a promenade along the Aare River. We visited the Glatz bakery, where they invented the Berner Mandelbarli an almond-flavored cake-like cookie that is unique to Bern. Bern has numerous fountains throughout the city, many adorned with ornate carvings: the bagpiper , the hunter, the armored bear, and the child-eating ogre in Kornhausplatz. While there, check out the beautiful restaurant Korhhauskeller in the underground vaults under the Corn (grain) Exchange.
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| Muenster platz |
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| Gothic Muenster |
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| Limestone buildings |
Nearby we saw the iconic Zytglogge (Clock Tower), then walked Kramgasse down to the river, the town getting older as you descend. Albert Einstein studied in Zurich, but was later employed in the patent office in Bern, where he pursued his passion as an amateur physicist while living on fashionable Kramgasse. In 1905, his "miracle year", Einstein published his general relativity theorem, later transitioning to academia before fleeing Nazism in 1933.
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Bear Park
(can you spot the bear?) |
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| View from Nydegg Bridge |
The views from the Kirchenfeld Bridge are impressive, and further down the river the Nydegg Bridge takes you to the Bear Park, where Bern’s eponymous bears can be seen in an enclosure along the river.
Luzern (German) / Lucerne (French)
Lucerne is the dividing line between the Protestant north and Catholic south, a division that is 500 years old and led to multiple wars.
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| Chapel Bridge |
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| Painting under Chapel Bridge |
Arriving at Luzern train station is easy, as the train station is small compared to Zurich, hence much more navigable. The waterfront is just across the street from the station, and it's a short walk to the historic core. Cafes line the river, which is crossed by two covered bridges, each with impressive paintings under the roof. The longer Chapel Bridge is an eighteenth-century reconstruction of the burned original, but the smaller Mill Bridge dates from the sixteenth century. Across the bridge is the old town, with beautiful squares of painted houses and shops.
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Mill Bridge paintings (all
have images of death) |
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| Mill Bridge |
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| Reuss River |
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| Muehlenpatz |
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| Weinplatz |
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| Weinplatz |
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| Fasnacht fountain |
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| Restaurant Fritschi |
We had lunch in one of those squares, at Fritschi, where we eat enjoyed local specialties. The restaurant is famous for the mural painted on the facade depicting the annual fasnacht festival (Tuesday before Lent).
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| Luzern lake front |
The views from the old town, across Lake Luzern with the snow-covered Alps in the background, are amazing.
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| Luzern Lowendenkmal |
The famous Luzern Lion was carved into mountain quarry in 1821 to commemorates the Swiss Guards who fell during the storming of the Tuileries Palace in Paris in 1792. It has been a symbol of the city ever since. It's beautiful and evocative.
