What do you do when one vacation isn’t enough? You take a vacation within a vacation! This is what happens more times than not, when I go visit my friends who live in Germany. We typically spend part of my two-week trip in Paderborn where they live, and the other part traveling elsewhere, so I can see more of Europe.
For years I had been talking about heading to Switzerland but the drive from their house is long, at just over 400 miles, and the timing never really worked out during my prior visits. The closest I had gotten to the Alps thus far, was on a layover a few years prior. Lufthansa didn’t have direct flights from Philadelphia to Frankfurt yet, so I took Swiss Air out of JFK, landing in Zurich around dawn. I knew from speaking to a family friend who is an airline pilot that if I sat on the right side of the plane, I would have a direct view of the Alps when we got close to landing. The sun was just peeking over the horizon and all passengers had their window shades fully drawn, still sound asleep. All except one, me! I, much to every ones dismay, had mine raised just enough, that I could catch a peek of the top of the Alps stretching up through the clouds in the morning sunlight (and lighting up half the dark cabin in the process). Sorry, not sorry other passengers!
Finally though, after years of the timing being off, I was able to visit during summer, and more importantly during their break from school, so I was finally getting my wish to visit Switzerland!
Before actually booking my flights, we chatted about what we wanted to do while I was there. The original plan was to travel around the country, staying in different cities every couple of nights. We quickly realized that was impractical though, as Switzerland is small enough that you can travel from city to city within a couple of hours by car, even less by train.
Instead, we thought it would be best to use Zürich as a hub and take day trips from there each day, returning at night to sleep. This plan worked out well, as my friends have family that live just outside Zurich city center, so we were also able to spend time with them during our trip.
While we didn’t want to commit to exact plans until we were there, I had a few things in mind I was really hoping to see. Zürich of course was on the list, as we would be staying there. I also wanted to trek into the Alps to visit the top of one of the peaks and possibly some of the glaciers. Last but not least, thanks to an “a-ha!” moment during planning, I realized two stages of the Tour de France would be occurring in Bern, Switzerland, during the same time frame we were planning to be there. Having followed the Tour since the days of Lance Armstrong and the U.S. Postal Team, this jumped pretty high up on my list of must do’s on this trip!
After much planning, and excitement, July finally rolled around and I was headed off to Germany for my dual vacation! Now that Lufthansa has added non-stop service from Philadelphia, I usually take a Friday overnight flight, landing in Frankfurt early on a Saturday morning.
Not being quite as young and resistant to jet lag as I once was when I first started traveling to Europe, we usually wait a day for me to get settled before heading out on any long road trips. Once we arrived at their house, I got cleaned up, ate a very yummy home cooked lunch and we headed out into the city center to walk around, mainly so I could fight the urge to take a nap.
The general rule when traveling to Europe, as I was taught by my professor many trips prior, was to stay up until at least 9pm local time, and absolutely NO naps, no matter how tired you are and how little you slept on the plane! Doing this helps your body adjust to local time. If you choose to nap, you are likely to be a zombie for days into your trip. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Knowing we had to get up early the next morning for a long drive, I cheated a bit and went to bed a bit before 9pm. Okay, really I went to bed before 9pm because I fell dead asleep on the couch for two hours after our walk, and it just seemed like the logical thing to do at that point.
The next morning, still jet lagged, I peeled myself out of bed, ate some breakfast and helped load the car so we could hit the road.
The drive should have taken around 6.5-7 hours but thanks to a traffic jam and a lot of closed roads due to construction once we arrived in Zürich, it took closer to 9. We were all getting a bit antsy to get out of the car at that point and were very happy to finally arrive at their families home.
We parked the car out front and were immediately greeted by their nieces and nephew who came running down the hill from the house to say hello…or “Hallo!” since everything was now in German!
Switzerland which is made up of 26 cantons, similar to states here in the US, has four official languages that are spoken, German, French, Italian, and Romansh. The language you speak depends on which bordering country you live closest to, though the majority of the county speaks German. Along with these four languages, Swiss German, a special dialect of German that many Germans struggle to understand is quite common in Switzerland.
Most adults and older aged school children also speak English, as was the case with their oldest, so we happily went back and forth all week teaching each other various words in each other’s language.
Our first evening in Zürich, we enjoyed dinner outback on their patio, which just happened to have a view of the Alps off to one side and did a little exploring of the Zürich Wilderness Park Langenberg that connected to their property. This wilderness park is similar to a zoo, but instead of being held in small enclosures, the animals are free to roam in much larger fenced areas that more realistically mimic their natural habitat. The park has numerous trails that you can walk for free and see animals such as deer, bison, fox, brown bears and moose.
It was starting to get late, so we needed to get over to the hotel to check in and head to bed for the night. We stayed in a cute semi-industrial style hotel by the ibis chain in Adliswil, the next town over. The one great thing I have found about Europe, is that the quote “budget” hotels are actually quite nice, while still being affordable. This particular hotel is only considered a 2 out of 5 star however, it was insanely clean, had a comfortable bed, a private bathroom, free wifi and a decent amount of space. The only thing it was lacking was air conditioning! Temperatures in most of Europe don’t normally get high enough to require air conditioning however it seems the past couple of summers there are beginning to dictate otherwise.
After a fairly sticky and uncomfortable first night of sleep, we drove back to the families house, where we planned to leave the car for the day and walk down through town to the train station. I say down by the way, because their village is situated on the side of a small mountain and yes, it is about as cute as you would expect! There is no school bus, the teachers literally walk through town every morning, picking up the young school children too small to walk to school on their own.
Switzerland, like many other cities in Europe has an excellent rail system, so it made the most sense to use it rather than deal with driving into the city and finding parking.
We got on the train at the Langnau-Gattikon station, part of the S4 line on the Zürich S-Bahn line, and rode the twenty minutes into the city center, getting off at Zürich Hauptbahnhof, the main train station in Zürich. The scene upon exiting the station was chaotic and similar to that of a street in New York City, loaded with clothing stores, jewelry stores and a ton of people rushing about. Not quite what I had in mind for the day.
We started walking south, making our way across Uraniastrasse Street and into a much quieter older neighborhood called Old Town. We walked along Lindenhofstrasse to admire some of the architecture before making our way to Lindenhofplatz, a small park with a really pretty elevated view of the river, surrounding city and the top of the snow covered Alps off in the distance. Yes, that’s right, snow covered Alps, at the end of July! Some of the peaks are so far above sea level, they remain covered in snow year round! Kind of ironic, seeing as how it was an unusual 90+ degrees in the city.
After taking an ample amount of photos at the park, we headed down a set of steps towards the Rathausbrücke bridge, where we stopped and purchased some Döner Kebap’s, the German version of a gyro, and multiple bottles of water at a little stand for lunch. It was at this point, as we sat on the wall eating lunch and admiring the scenery, that I realized just how much the heat was affecting me. My head was pounding and Sven had just pointed out my shoulders were starting to closely resemble a lobster.
We smartly headed for some shade via the narrow tight alleyways that ran along the river loaded with cafes and shops. I stopped along the way to buy some magnets for my ever growing collection, Swiss cowbells and more importantly, some after sun lotion to slather all over my sunburn later that evening.
Having had enough of the heat, we decided to call it quits on touring the city and instead made our way back to the train station to head back and join the rest of the group who had ventured over to the Lake Zürich to beat the heat! Now being burnt to a crisp, jumping into a lake fed by the glaciers in the mountains above sounded amazing!
Lake Zürich has a number of small beach clubs surrounding its edges, where you can pay to swim for the day. The cost to get in was only a couple of Euros and gave you access to rest rooms, showers, a snack bar, a kids wading area as well as docks and other toys to play on out in the water.
The beach club we went to this day was called Seebad Kilchberg in the town of Schoren located towards the northern end of the lake on the west side. It was a bit of a surreal experience swimming in a crystal clear lake in the middle of summer with those same snow covered Alps off in the distance. The water as you would expect was a bit cold, but felt amazing on my red shoulders!
After a couple hours of swimming, it was time to head home and get cleaned up for dinner. Sven who dropped me off at the gate on the way in, mentioned that he had parked the car up the street at Lindt. Having no idea where we were and not paying much attention with my borderline heat stroke, I didn’t piece this together and just followed along down the street and up the hill. It was then that I looked up and saw the giant Lindt sign on the building. It was the Lindt chocolate factory!!! It was directly across the street from the beach club, and he had apparently parked near the retail store that was located out back.
Judith and I immediately asked the same question, “Do you think they will let us in soaking wet and in bathing suits??” Not only did they, no one said a peep about it! Or maybe they did, who knows, I don’t speak German!
This place was chocolate heaven! It was setup similar to the stores that sell M&M’s here in the states, where the main room is nothing but clear bins filled with the various flavors of chocolates they produce, with smaller side rooms that contained new specialty flavors only available at the factory store, and samples you could taste, as eating directly out of the bins was apparently frowned upon!
In the main room with the bins, they had small bags that you could take and fill to your liking, then purchase based on weight. Needless to say I got back in the car about 5 pounds of chocolate heavier and over $100 less rich, having bought bags of chocolate for my parents and sister, one for myself for home and one for myself for the rest of vacation, because lets be real, that bag wasn’t going to last the rest of the time in Switzerland let alone back to the states.
Post chocolate coma, we enjoyed another dinner back at the house with the whole group outside on the patio, then retreated back to our hotel to rest up for our big adventure the next day. Remember my really wanting see the Alps from the top of a peak? Well that happened, but we got the top in a somewhat un-conventional method. On foot!
Stay tuned next week, for our adventure of hiking 7.5 miles up Mount Rigi, the Queen of the Mountains!
Travel Tips
Languages
Switzerland has four official languages, German, French, Italian, and Romansh which vary depending on which area of the country you are in. Zürich’s official language is German but a dialect called Swiss German is spoken most frequently. Due to the high number of financial institutions and banks in Zürich, many speak fluent English however, it is still polite to at least attempt basic greetings in the local language before asking if they speak English.
Hello = Hallo!
Good Morning = Guten Morgen!
Good Day = Guten Tag!
Good Evening = Guten Abend!
Goodbye = Auf Wiedersehen!
Yes = Ja! (Pronounced Yah!)
No = Nein!
Please = Bitte
Thank You Very Much = Danke schön
Do you speak English? = Sprechen Sie Englisch?
Money
Despite being in Europe, Switzerland has their own currency, the Swiss Franc (CHF). The value compared to the US Dollar can vary as much as CHF0.88-1.00 for $1.00 USD. While the Swiss Franc isn’t too far off from the US Dollar conversion wise, Switzerland is a very expensive country to live in or visit, with Zürich ranking as the most expensive of the large cities there. Food is insanely expensive and meals out can average 15 CHF for lunch to 35 CHF for a three course dinner, which is why we were thankful to be able to share meals with their family most nights. A cup of coffee can run you 4 CHF and a gallon of gas (though they go by liters there) is almost 7 CHF, just to give you a comparison to the United States. A ticket on public transit is roughly 2.5 CHF per person, per ride though, so much more economical than driving. Like any city, you can get creative and stick to a smaller budget, but be prepared for a bit of sticker shock here!
Hotel
We stayed in a a lovely budget style hotel in the ibis chain in Adliswil, located around 3 miles from the center of Zürich. It runs around $130USD per night and is comparable to a standard chain hotel you would find here in the US. The rooms and hotel were impeccably clean. They come with a private bathroom, free Wifi, plenty of storage, a desk if you need to do work and a small TV if you don’t. There was a restaurant and bar on site with both indoor and outdoor dining options. As is common with most homes and hotels in Europe, they do not have air conditioning, so sleeping even with the window open in mid-summer heat can be uncomfortable. Also, as is common in Europe, rooms typically only have a double bed versus two beds like hotel chains in the US. If you are traveling with kids, you may need to book two rooms. The nearest train station into the city is the Kilchberg stop and is a one mile walk from the hotel.
Hotels in the city center can run upwards of $200 per night, if you wish to stay in the middle of the action.
Electricity
Switzerland, like most of Europe runs on a different voltage (230V/50 Hz) and uses different plus than your electronics in the US. That doesn’t mean you can’t bring or use them, you just need to be prepared! Most low voltage appliances, such as your cell phone, are charged with cords using a USB plug on the end that goes into the plug in the wall, meaning you only need a plug adaptor to charge your device. I have a couple of these simple QIBOX adaptors that I have been using for years to charge my phone, kindle, watch etc. without any issues.
More powerful electronics such as lap tops, require an electricity converter such as this Foval International Travel Adaptor Power Step Down, to be able to safely plug them in without frying your device, or worse starting a fire.
Speaking of frying devices, ladies (and gentleman with a more advanced hair care routine), leave the full sized straighteners and curling irons at home! Even with a converter, these items draw a lot of power and do not tend to work well in European outlets and absolutely DO NOT plug one in with only a plug adaptor!
If you prefer to travel with your own hair dryer, I have this Conair miniPRO Tourmaline hair dryer that is dual voltage! You still need a plug adaptor for use in Europe, however there is a screw on the handle that you turn to switch the voltage between 110V (USA) and 220V (Europe). It then only works in the low setting but is just as powerful as the high setting when set to 110V.
For those of you with Apple products, mainly laptops that require a proper plug to charge them, Apple makes a World Travel Adaptor kit! Because their power cords are rated for multiple voltages, all you need to do to use your laptop in another country is remove the US plug from the charging cube on the cord and replace it with the plug for the country you are traveling to. No additional converter needed! Fair warning though, the charging cube can get VERY hot (as it tends to using US power as well), so I do not recommend leaving anything plugged in and unattended.
The terminology can get very confusing so here is a simple explanation…
Adaptor – Only changes the shape of the plug. It does not change the voltage.
Converter – Changes the voltage.
More information
Zürich is a beautiful city with many activities year round. Our day in the city became very limited due to the extreme heat, so we didn’t get to experience as much as we would have liked. Here are two links to official tourism sites where you can download a city guides and explore all this great city has to offer!