July 20
I left Paris the following morning, for an equally short stay in Zürich where I will stay overnight before taking a rather special train over the Alps and into Italy. I took the TGV to Strasbourg, covering 300 miles (about 500 km) in a mere 2 hours, impressive when many train journeys of similar length in the UK can take double if not triple that time, Manchester to London is 2 hours on the train and is a shorter journey in distance by 100 miles. From there it was a regional train to Basel before getting finally experiencing Switzerland’s much lauded railways for the first time, a journey that was marred somewhat by discovering to my horror that Switzerland, not being nor ever been in the EU, is not included in my phone network’s roaming plans. It just took going on the internet once to max out my £5 extra charges cap, and with no data there was no way to alter it, and there was no wi-fi on the train either. I took that in my stride and checked into my hostel (which thankfully did have wi-fi!). Then came the next farce, when I went back into town to do a bit of exploration only to discovered my passport was no longer on me – and whilst I was 90 percent sure I had left it at the hostel, I needed to be sure because things could get pretty awkward if I had lost it – besides in many European countries you are required to show ID if so requested by the police and Switzerland is one. The hostel wasn’t central either – 10 minutes from the centre on the local S-Bahn line. But to put my mind at ease I went back, and lo and behold it was in my dorm room. So after the end of that farce I went back into town to try and find somewhere to eat some tea – easier said than done due to the lack of mobile internet meaning I just looked up places on the hostel’s wi-fi and screenshotted the locations on the map. Eventually I came across a pizza place by chance, and splurged on a basic margarita for 17 francs/£15, thankfully the quality of the food justified the price, and Zürich is one of the more expensive places to visit – think typical prices in London and the Nordic countries. It was as well I came to somewhere inside because the heavens opened, which in a way was good because the heat was still stifling here. After finishing my pizza, I embarked on the second part of the visit, exploring the bars, which I will explore in my next post, and will end this one with some sights from Zürich, noting that one thing I was impressed with was its cleanliness, with an absence of litter and graffiti.
Exploring Zürich city centre as much as time and the weather would permit.