Day 31: Zürich, Sunny, 25°

A Wander Through Zürich! 

Laying in bed at 5:30 this morning I was Googling the best things to see in Zürich. Having never been here before, and unlikely to return, I was trying to decide how to approach my visit. I garnered all sorts of free advice concerning what to see, what order to see it in and when to arrive at different sites. Who spends their time putting these sorts of lists together? In the end, I decided to just walk out the door and have a look around as is often my usual process these days. This may not work for everyone, but I don’t really care if I see everything. It’s more about the feel of a place that I am most interested in. I’ve changed my approach over the years. 

I walked up past the railway station, a huge caverness structure which I am sure has witnessed a great deal. It’s actually quite a cool train station with several levels including a massive underground mall and at least two train levels. One of my favourite experiences is to ride the trains and see some of these fabulous central train stations. The train infrastructure in the EU is really quite amazing! Locals come and go on the trains and through the train stations like they were born to it, which I guess they were. Over the years I have become much more comfortable with this process, but it still takes me a bit of time to figure out the system in each country. 

I went in to have a look at the train schedule for the airport early tomorrow morning. There’s loads of trains so shouldn’t be a problem. I’m supposed to be at the airport four hours ahead, but I think that if I arrive around three hours ahead that there should be plenty of time. I’m already checked in online and I only have carry-on. It’s just a matter of getting through security and then perhaps going to an airport lounge to have breakfast. At least I know that’s what Rob would recommend, right Rob? 👍

I put this photo in as well, because I really like the trams!

Next on my impromptu tour was a walk down the main shopping streets which are only open to bicycles and people on foot. Delivery trucks can also get into these areas because the businesses, restaurants and bars need to be serviced. 

I like how they use flags in Switzerland. While they can appear to add a bit of formality, they also add some colour to what would otherwise be somewhat drab buildings. I’m not saying that all the buildings here are drab, but there’s a lot of mono tone. Of course Switzerland was neutral during the two major wars this past century, so cities and buildings were left intact. In the central core of these cities I’m guessing that things are reasonably unchanged. Lovely Prague is just like that too. 

Switzerland is a little on the conservative side, hence the traditionally boring banking and diamond sectors. However, I find the people to be quite approachable, and they never failed to say hello when I met them while walking. In Umbria I found the people less approachable and they would usually only react when I greeted them. This hasn’t been my experience in other parts of Italy, quite the opposite. I think Umbrians are just not use to tourism and outsiders. That’s the way it felt to me. Once they get used to you though, and conversation is started, I found the Umbrians to be very nice.



I really enjoy these little outdoor fountains in the towns and cities. They are often covered in flowers, and I really identify with them. I suppose you’re wondering how I got that pigeon to pose for me, right?😎
Of course, I’m in the home of the cuckoo clock! For that matter, there’s all manner of time pieces on display in the windows.
In other parts of the EU, notably France and Italy, you find the most amazing displays of food in the store windows. In Switzerland, particularly in Zürich and Geneva, you find displays of expensive watches and ridiculously expensive jewellery in the windows. I wasn’t remotely interested.😏

Speaking of time pieces, this is apparently the largest outdoor clock face in Europe, approximately 8.7 m across. Sadly the church itself wasn’t very impressive. As a matter of fact, I went into all three of the main churches in central Zürich, and I found each of them pretty drab. Compared to churches in the other EU countries these were about as boring as you’ll find. I was actually surprised and disappointed. Mind you, Switzerland never had much of a colonial presence, and failed to bring home vast quantities of gold and silver like some of their neighbours did. But they have all those big banks! I guess the money stayed in the banks.😂
See what I mean about the flags?

And then it was down to the river for an early morning stroll. The tourist groups were not yet on the streets, and it was really pleasant.





The Munster. 
It’s funny. Now that my daily stage walks are completed I’m finding myself ridiculously hungry! This morning before going out I ate two bananas and a couple of other things. By the time I got to this square I was starving. So I found a little café where I could sit outside and enjoy a cup of black tea and two croissants. Just plain croissants mind you. If I had ordered any jam to put on them I probably would’ve exceeded my credit card limit! Zürich is the most expensive city in Europe. I was reading that the way they manage this is to pay exceedingly high incomes so that the local population can afford to live here. Apparently much higher incomes than in the rest of the EU. That’s why you see people sitting on chairs in the squares and on benches everywhere drinking their morning beverage from a paper cup and munching on a croissant. They just can’t afford to eat in the cafés or the restaurants. 

Having spent a portion of our children’s inheritance on breakfast I continued down river towards the lake.
I did find some very ornate buildings. Someone spent a little bit of money on some of the buildings here.



After a quick look down at the lake I decided to cross over to the east side of the river so that I could have a better look at the west side of the river. Make sense?

But then I changed my mind halfway across the bridge and decided that I’d better go have a look at the famous banking district. I wasn’t going to do this, but I decided that with my background people might ask me if I had seen the banking district. Now I can say that I have. 

And here it is. It’s an industry that recently has had a few questions asked of it. Firstly there’s the priceless art and gold that was stolen by the Nazis and is allegedly held in some of these banks. Every now and then you hear of a recovery and the Swiss banks cooperating more when it comes to divulging information about funds that were obtained under somewhat dubious circumstances. Then there’s Credit Suisse that recently nearly collapsed because they somehow neglected to hedge their interest rate risk. How does that happen to such a long-standing financial institution? Their assets were picked up at a huge discount by a US bank.

On a more interesting note, there was a guy playing piano (on the right side of this photograph). He was amazing! Probably one of the more interesting experience that I had today was listening to him play. 

Finished assessing the banking sector, I finally did cross over to the east bank. 

Oddly, it seemed a little more lighthearted on this side of the river. 

I climbed up to the Grossmünster which is Zürich’s landmark and the centre of the Reformation. Inside I found some beautiful stainglass with the sunlight casting colourful patterns on the floor. I’ve been known to enjoy these light patterns! 
I also spotted a series of stainglass windows that were clearly inspired by segmented, crystalline geodes. Extremely unusual!
I have some at home that look just like several of these.







I will admit that I followed this woman for a little way because she seem to know exactly the best route to move along the west side of the river. I had earlier walked along the streets above on my way out, but wanted to follow the river back to the train station. There were some neat little bridges and tunnels along the side of the river. I came to a little park looking across towards the east bank, found a bench and sat there for about a half an hour just watching the birds and the traffic go bye. Really pleasant. Before I knew it I was getting hungry again!
I passed by the national museum on my way to the grocery store where I hoped to find a sandwich and a cold drink to take back to my room. I really wasn’t in the mood to spend $80 on lunch! I looked at several menus and I just couldn’t bring myself to spend that much when $12 paid for the cheaper option.🙂 Again, eating alone isn’t all that much fun most days. Besides, I had tons to do to get ready to go home tomorrow.

With this blog post almost complete, I can get my gear sorted out for the trek home. In my near future there is a non-stop 10 1/2 hour economy sear to Vancouver waiting for me. Yuck! However, if that’s the price I have to pay to come to the EU for distance walking then I’m delighted to pay it. Our many friends in Australia take twice as long to get here, so no complaints at this end. Besides, there will be three lovely young ladies waiting to pick me up at YVR who will take me to the ferry and home to our island. That should be fun! If I can stay awake🤣

I actually washed my clothes last night so I wouldn’t injure any airport security folks who might decide to inspect the contents of my pack!😵‍💫 As my good friend Ken says, when on these long walks the best we can hope for is to rinse out the sweat from our clothes. They never get very clean, just acceptable for the next day. I’m at that point where I am really looking forward to pulling on some different clothes. Knowing I would be spending most of my time hauling my butt up various mountains and hills I brought as little clothing as I could get away with. Understandably I’m now a little sick of my selection! 

As always, thanks for following along. It means more than you know, and the comments, messages and emails have all been really welcomed and appreciated.

I already have a few thoughts for a walk next year, but first I want to enjoy the coming summer (it is still only late spring) and fall. Then I will carefully broach the subject with Annemarie who has mostly been supportive of my distant walking hobby these past 10 years. Hopefully she will be ready to join me again next year on the trail. I still feel the desire to walk, and so far my body and health has been up for the challenge.🤞 As I’ve said here before, this form of travel ticks all my boxes! Otherwise, I’d be doing something else.

Cheers from Zürich!

Geoff ❤️🙏🍷

Day 30: Stage 24: Zürich, 37 km, Sun, 27°

Donda Esta #4?

It’s been an incredibly long day, and it’s just after 21:00 as I get started on this post. I’d rather write it tonight and I need a bit of time to unwind anyway. 

The day started off very early. 

After a good, but quick breakfast I found myself walking just above the railway lines looking for route sign #4. This would become the theme today. I became reasonably comfortable yesterday following route four, so today I decided to simply trust #4. I felt confident that this would work out and knowing that I had my waypoint plots in my app to fall back on if necessary.

As you can see, it was a beautiful morning. I began to get further into the vineyards that the north shore is so famous for. So famous that they are now labelled with a world heritage designation.


Early on I passed a beautiful château, complete with formal gardens. There were to be a series of such sightings today

I started off pretty well, and was able to keep a close eye on the route #4 signage. However, as the path lead me down towards the lake the signs mysteriously disappeared, and were replaced by different signage. Very confusing, but trusting as I was today I continued to follow the new signs.

I love the Swiss beehives! I think they are the best that I have seen in the EU so far. Always brightly painted and in good repair.

With a sense of relief I found a #4 just above the new heritage type signs. I continued on.
But there were no more #4 signs to be seen. Just the new heritage type signage.
I followed the new signs for a while, but when I reached the highway I discovered a good walking path parallel to the roadway. The path was also a cycling path, and there were commuters flying along as I walked. There were also a number of cyclists with all their gear on board in panniers.

I came to a point where are the heritage signs lead off the highway towards the lake. After looking at my app, I decided to continue walking on the cycling path in order to make up some time. The earlier deviation had been long, but largely in a semi circle. I need it to make sure that I kept my progress moving down the lake. 

Unfortunately, the cycling lane ended and I ended up walking on a very busy highway with very fast moving traffic. I knew this couldn’t continue so I looked at my app for the first available exit that would take me up away from the lake where I could find one of my way points. As chance would have it I found another heritage walk complete with an information map. This was very fortunate because I was able to plot a route to connect with my original waypoint route. 

And wouldn’t you know it, I found my missing #4 signs!

Feeling pretty pleased with myself, and a little relieved, I set off at pace along a route that would take me down to the lake, away from the lake and back down to the lake. 

The mountains were clearing today. 





As I began to get better views way down the lake, where it dog legged to the right (south) I began to get a little emotional. This is the route that the Via Francigena takes, and for the rest of the day I fought a strong urge to continue on to the VF. It was a magical walk last year, and the pull to go that way again caught me by surprise.



Once again, the route lead me away from the lake. In one sense the walking today was quite magical, but in another way it was a little brutal. I estimate that 90% of the route was on paved or cement roads. This can really take a toll, because there’s just no give when walking on those types of surfaces.



These are thousands upon thousands of grape vine root stock. I’ve never seen it grown like this. I imagine that this is how all of it is started, but I’ve never come across this before. Super interesting what one can learn on these types of travel.
I enjoy the textures in these soil furrows.

And who came up with a brilliant idea of putting rosebushes at the ends of the rows? They are seldom at the end of every row, usually just one every seven or eight rows
Back down at the lake, I’ve been impressed to see just how much the Swiss love boating. They are, of course, a landlocked country, but in the west and north of the country there are quite large lakes.

I’m keeping a sharp eye on those #4 route signs. But I’m a little concerned to see that it’s 4 1/2 hours to my destination, where I plan to catch a train to Zürich. It’s 11:00 in the morning and I have already walked about half the total distance that I’d expected to walk today. I began to have a sense that I had underestimated the length of today’s stage. Hmmmm?🤔

The only thing to do was to keep on walking, because I had no access to Wi-Fi or data. Stick with the plan.

Another beautiful château right on the lake. Down at the far end of the lake on the VF there is a spectacular château.

What an amazing day!

And then again, it was up and away from the lake

Through a small village.



And then back down to the lake.

I met a walker who was coming up this hill and he wasn’t in good shape. By that I mean that he was struggling. A large pack and both knees strapped up. I felt for him, but knew that there was little I could do to help other than to greet him.







Amazing lavender! It looked like Provence lavender.



And then I was in Zürich! I make it sound like it happened very quickly, but by the time I found the  train station and enjoyed a long train ride (while rehydrating) quite a few hours passed by. 

Given the prices in Swiss restaurants, I did what most budget conscious travellers do in this country. I went to the grocery store to see what I could find! The grocery stores were crazy busy! I managed to get some smoked salmon from Alaska, a section of brie cheese, a couple of healthy, looking buns and an ice, cold Swiss beer! I after a really long day I didn’t really feel like trying to find a suitable restaurant. The majority of the restaurants here are focussed on meat dishes, but I did see some Italian restaurants and I’ll have a look around tomorrow.

My small, but ridiculously expensive room is in the building with the red sign on top. It’s a basic room, but it’s quite serviceable and will be fine for two nights.

Tomorrow I plan to spend a full day checking out this city. I’ve heard lots of great things about it. I know quite a few of my friends have never been here, so I plan to do one last blog post tomorrow. In the meantime, it’s 22:30 and I should probably think about getting a bit of sleep. Having changed beds so often as one does on these types of walks, I’m getting pretty good at changing from one bed to another.🙂 It doesn’t mean I’m getting more sleep, but I am getting good at shifting beds!🙏

The portion of the video from when I got onto the train did not sync well with the photographs. So you will see all the photos lumped together from the train. That said, the overall video is reasonably good, but for some reason the distance got messed up. I was on a high-speed train for almost 2 1/2 hours.😂 Anyway, enjoy!