2023-08-23: Exploring Zurich

After a week of waking up between 5:30am and 5:45am, we let ourselves sleep in a bit this morning. Most of us were awake by 7:30am though. Except for Patrick of course. We got showered and dressed for the day. The three of us were getting ready to head to the hotel restaurant for breakfast when Patrick stirred. We asked if he wanted to join us. He reluctantly agreed and ran through the shower quickly. We headed to the restaurant at 9:00am.

When breakfast was finished, we returned to the room quickly to grab our gear for the day. Then we headed out exploring. We saw a church nearby yesterday that we wanted to check out. We headed in the direction of where we saw it and found it after a few minutes of walking. It was called Grossmunster. It has two towers. We explored inside and admired the stained glass windows. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside. There was a crypt underneath the church where they had some information about the founding of the church. It is rumored to be on the site of the first church built in Zurich by Charlemagne. You could buy tickets to climb the stairs of one of the towers which the kids wanted to do. The first flight of stairs were narrow spiral stairs. Then they turned into wooden stairs built on platforms. We made it to the top where they had gated openings on 5 sides. We had a nice view of Zurich from the top. Once we had finished admiring the view, we headed back down the stairs and exited the church.

We continued walking South to where the river opens up into Zurichsee Lake. There were flocks of waterfowl along the bank. We sat along the waterfront and watched the swans and ducks swim by. Some dumb people a little further down were crumbling up bread and tossing it to the birds. From the top of the church we could see a building with a big Lindt sign on the top of it. It was just across the river from where we were so we decided to go see what it was all about.

We found the building and were greatly disappointed. We could see the Lindt sign on the roof, but there was no other evidence that it was related to Lindt. It looked like an office or residential complex. There was a cafe on one corner of the main floor but that was it. We saw another interesting red building a couple of bocks farther to the West so decided to check it out. We found it quickly. It appeared to be a residential building. It had some neat architecture. There was a sign on the front that said it had been built between 1891 and 1893.

We had tickets to the Lindt Chocolate Museum and a chocolate making class. It was time to start making our way to Lindt’s “Home of Chocolate”. It was a few kilometers away so we would have to take a bus to get there. We made our way towards the bus stop. We still had a few minutes so we stopped for a quick drink and snack along the way. We found the bus stop and waited for the bus to arrive. A large group of people joined us waiting for the bus. When the bus arrived, we all go on and it was packed. We had to stand unfortunately.

About 15 minutes later, we arrived at the Lindt facility. We were impressed just by walking up to the building. It was pretty fancy from the outside. We walked inside and the first thing we saw was a giant chocolate fountain in the atrium. We had tickets for a chocolate course first at 1:30pm. We checked in for the course and they told us where to meet at 1:25pm It was about 1:10pm at this point so we wandered through the Lindt store on-site for a few minutes. The store is massive. There are Lindt products none of us have seen before. It was fun to explore.

At 1:25pm we met our chocolatiers for the class. There were two of them. There were about 15 people in the course. The first thing we did was get an apron and chef’s hat to wear for the course. Then we washed our hands before they opened a large door into what looked like a MasterChef style room. It was impressive.

The course consisted of decorating and forming a hollow chocolate bear using a mold followed by decorating a couple of chocolate lollipops. Making the bear was harder than it looked. First you use either milk or dark chocolate to fill in the features of the bear on the mold. The eyes, mouth, paws, etc. The mold was split in two halves; the front and back. Once the decorating was done, you combined the two halves which are held together with strong magnets. Then we filled the mold three quarters of the way with the opposite chocolate of what you used to decorate with. You then whacked it with a plastic pole to get any air bubbles out and then drained out all the excess chocolate, making sure you coat the 1/4 at the end that wasn’t filled with chocolate. Once the excess chocolate was drained out, you laid down the mold horizontally in front of you and gently flipped it over every 10 seconds or so for about 5 minutes. This lets any remaining chocolate harden while keeping the mold coated. After the five minutes were up, we filled the mold with chocolate again and repeated the process of flipping for another five minutes. The chocolatier grabbed the bears and threw them in the fridge for a few minutes. Then she pulled them out and spread some chocolate on a cookie sheet. The opening in the molds where we added the chocolate was the bottom of the bear. She took each bear and put it bottom down in the chocolate she spread out. Then she put the bears back in the fridge. This seals up the bear.

While the bears were chilling in the fridge, she brought us each two lindt balls on a stick. We dipped the balls in either the milk or dark chocolate vats and then placed them in a pile of either raspberry chips, chocolate chips. hazelnuts, or dried cranberries. Then we could use some white chocolate to decorate the lollipops if we desired.

Once the lollipops were done, the chocolatier pulled the bears out of the fridge and took them out of the molds. We packaged up the bears and lollipops and were sent on our way. It was a lot of fun!

After completing the chocolate course, we had tickets to go through their chocolate museum. The museum was larger than we anticipated. It contained displays and exhibits ranging from how chocolate is made from the cocoa plant through to the final product. It also went through the history of chocolate from the time of the Mayans through to current production. They had tastings of liquid chocolate from chocolate fountains and various Lindt ball flavours. They had a contraption at the end where you scanned your ticket which set off a machine that carried a large golden ball through a course of sorts. At the end, it spit out another chocolate for you take. It took us about an hour to go through the museum.

We went back through the Lindt store and picked up a few things to bring home. There was a cafe on the main floor where we grabbed a quick snack. It was 3:30pm and we hadn’t had lunch yet. They served hot chocolate and mocha products made with Lindt chocolate that were very tasty. After our snack, we made our way back to the bus stop for the return journey to our hotel. The bus came within a few minutes and we loaded on. It was much emptier this time, but the A/C wasn’t working. It was cooking on the bus. We were worried all our chocolate was going to melt. It was hotter in the bus than it was outside and it was a toasty 34 degrees outside.

About 15 minutes later and we were back along the river near our hotel. It was a bit of a walk back to the hotel so we decided to take the water bus back to the hotel. There was a water bus stop just across the river from us. The water bus pulled up just as we were getting to the stop. We hopped on and enjoyed a leisurely cruise back to our hotel area. We went back to the hotel and put our chocolate in the fridge. It looks like it made it back alright.

We relaxed in the hotel for about an hour before heading to grab some dinner. We booked a table in the hotel restaurant for dinner because they have fondue! It was the only restaurant we saw in the area that served it and we couldn’t leave without having authentic Swiss fondue. The restaurant wasn’t cheap, but it was good food. Darrell ordered a cheese fondue while the rest of the family ordered an oil fondue. It was enjoyed by all. We heard one of the people at the table beside us talking about a fondue place in Banff where you can get fondue with alligator and kangaroo and stuff. Amanda popped around and asked where they were from. They were from Seattle. We said we’re from Calgary and know exactly what place their talking about. The Grizzly Haus in Banff.

After dinner, we went for a walk. It was starting to cool down finally. We wanted to grab a couple more items to bring home with us. We walked to the “Swiss Shop” which is a souvenir shop. Michael found a hat he liked there. Then we continued on to the Coop market to grab a couple of items. We walked to one other shop and then returned to the hotel. It was our last night before flying home so we got ourselves packed up as best we could in preparation for the flight home tomorrow. Then we called it a night.