2023-08-22: Arrival in Zurich

Our plane landed in Zurich on time at 6:10am. We all got some sleep on the plane but not a full night’s sleep. As we got off the plane there were a couple of security folks checking everyone’s passports. We continued on and had to go through immigration for Zurich. The border agent asked us how long we were staying. We told her two days. She asked “then where”? When we replied “then we head home”, she exclaimed “after only two days!?”. We explained that we’d just been touring Africa and this was a quick stop on our way home. She understood, stamped our passports, and let us continue. We entered the baggage carousel area and there were carts full of unclaimed luggage which was odd. We found our carousel and waited about 10 minutes for the bags to start appearing. Our bags were some of the first ones to come out. We grabbed them and headed for the exit.

We found a taxi outside and headed to the hotel. The taxi driver didn’t appear to speak English so there wasn’t much chatting with him during the drive. It was a nice way to get our first glimpse of Zurich. We pulled up to the hotel around 7:00am. The taxi ride was just under $100. Ouch!

We talked to the hotel reception and were not shocked to discover our room wasn’t ready yet. They let us drop off our bags and asked us to check in around 3:00pm. Only 8 hours to kill. The hotel is about a block from the Limmat river. We walked along the river to the North. With it being about 7:30am, not much was open yet. Michael was enamored with the fish that we could see swimming in the river. We came across the Landesmuseum which is the Swiss National Museum. We took a few pictures of the exterior and continued on.

We turned and walked down the other side of the river heading South. We came across a food market called Coop which we thought was kinda funny. We went in and explored the wonderful foods of Zurich. They had a nice big Swiss chocolate section. We’re visiting the Lindt chocolate museum tomorrow so figured we’d wait and see if we buy anything there before loading up on any other chocolate.

Amanda realized her sandals weren’t going to cut it for today so we started to head back to the hotel so she could swap into her runners. We made it back to the hotel and Amanda switched out her shoes. Michael decided he was hungry again so we decided we’d find a place to grab some breakfast. There is a breakfast offered by the hotel that we decided we’d check out. We entered the restaurant and they asked for our room number. We explained we didn’t have a room and offered to pay for the breakfast. The hostess said it would be 20 CHF per person but then asked if we were checking in today. When we said yes, she offered to let us eat breakfast for free which was very appreciated. The breakfast wasn’t amazing. It’s mostly breads, fruit, yogurt, cold cuts, and cheese. But, it’s free so we weren’t complaining.

By this time, it was approaching 10:00am. The Landesmuseum opened at 10:00am so we decided to return there and check it out. We spent a couple of hours exploring the museum. It had various exhibits including the history of Zurich, art, and a temporary exhibit dedicated to fashion designer Ursula Rodel. It is a big place and we found some of the exhibits quite interesting. We were feeling a bit parched after exploring the museum. There was a bistro in the museum that we headed to. They wanted a ridiculous amount of money for a bottle of water. The market we visited earlier was only a block or two away so we decided to head there.

We each grabbed a larger water bottle than the bistro offered for less than half the price. We made a good call. After rehydrating, we continued on. Patrick noticed there was a Victorinox Flagship store in Zurich. We looked up the address and it was only a few blocks away. We decided to go check it out. After taking one wrong turn, we got back on track and found the store. It was quite the place. They had everything from swiss army knives to kitchen utensils to backpacks. They have a build your own knife area where you can select from a few tool configurations, then you can pick your covers for each side, and add engraving if you desire. The kids thought that was pretty cool and each built a knife. Darrell also picked up a small knife as his needs replacing.

We started heading back towards the direction of the hotel. We encountered some swans along the river while we were walking. We checked out a Swiss souvenir store along the way that had some cute items. We didn’t buy anything though. We saw a spire not too far away and decided to check it out. It belonged to the Fraumünster Church. It’s an old church dating back to the 800’s. It has had many reconfigurations over the years. The stained glass in the building was beautiful. There is a crypt underneath where some of the old church foundations can be seen.

After exploring the church, we headed back to the hotel. We arrived at the hotel at 2:45pm which was a little early, but our room was ready. We got checked in and made ourselves comfortable in our room. We all had showers and relaxed in the room for a while. It was the heat of the day and was over 30 degrees outside. We also didn’t get a ton of sleep last night so needed a few minutes to recharge.

We headed out to grab some dinner around 6:00pm. We came across a burger place about a block away that the kids were interested in. We ordered some food and were very surprised by the speed of the service. We had our food at the table really quickly. The burgers were decent as well.

After dinner we decided to explore a little more. We made our way over to St. Peter church. It has the largest tower clock face in Europe. The church was closed by this time of course but we admired the clock tower from the outside. We returned to the hotel and got ready for bed. It has been a long couple of days.