Lost and Confused in Zurich

Our trip to Switzerland got off on the wrong foot. We were supposed to fly from Paris to Geneva and then take a ride share to Zurich to meet up with my friend who was going to be traveling with us for the next two weeks.

Two days before our flight I was checking the flight time and Dave just happened to notice that the flight seemed to be booked for the correct day but 2 months in advance.

I had somehow managed to book our flight for August 16 instead of June 16 (cue banging head against the wall).

Naturally, by the time Dave picked up on this error the flights for June 16 were obscenely expensive. And so we arrived in Zurich by train.

I didn’t have high expectations for Zurich – thinking it would be more of a business/working city, but I was in fact pleasantly surprised. The prices, on the other hand we were completely unprepared for. Though we had already spent a month in France we were still blown away by Swiss prices. $13 for a kebab, $40 for a fondue, you get the idea.

With my friend Ilona as a new addition to our traveling duo we set off to explore the city, starting with Uetliburg Hill. Our plan was to take the train up there and then walk down into the city.

Our walk down started to get complicated. We were looking out for signs to point us in the right direction, but all we saw were signs towards Wanderweg.

But we didn’t need to walk in the direction of Wanderweg, we wanted to get to Tremoli (or something of that name). Knowing that we definitely didn’t want to follow the trail to Wanderweg I took us down the mountain bike path. It seemed to be going in the correct direction and so we followed it part of the way down, sprinting down the narrow and steep mini hills, hoping to dodge a mountainbiker if they passed us.

Eventually the path to Wanderweg intersected the bike path and we followed that down, realizing that Wanderweg was the only destination indicated by the signs so we would have to follow it down.

Eventually we made it down the hill and hopped on a train to get into the center of the city. Our plan was too ambitious. The paths from the Uetliberg Hill were too difficult to figure out and it simply is too far from the city center, so note for the future – just take the train up and down the hill.

We didn’t realize this at the time, but days later we saw signs in other places pointing to Wanderweg. How could this be? Why would the signs be pointing to Wanderweg back in Zurich?

Well, as it turns out Wanderweg simply means walking trail. All that time we deliberately avoided walking in the direction of the wanderweg thinking it was a name of a place.

As you can imagine we got a good chuckle out of this as did every other German speaking person we encountered who we shared this story with.

Our Zurich excursion continued in the city center. With a bratwurst from a street stall and a few canned beers (got to love the legal public drinking in Europe) we were re-energized and ready to go.

We strolled past the Grossmünster, Fraumünster, Bahnhofstrasse etc, before making our way to the lake promenade.

 

Overall we had a nice day outing in Europe and enjoyed exploring the city.