Switzerland

May 18th – Barcelona to Zurich

A long day on trains, heading for Zurich. We left Barcelona’s old Franca station early in the morning on the 8 a.m.“Talgo”, after breakfast in a classic old, three story high, railway restaurant…the kind that doesn’t exist in the States anymore. Our fellow travelers on this Sunday seemed to be mostly tourists like ourselves, back-packers, and a few business people heading out early. We changed in Montpellier, France (to a TGV), and again in Geneva (ah, the joy of hefting suitcases on and off platforms and finding adequate storage spaces for them). By 8:30 p.m. we arrived at the Hauptbahnof in the heart of Zurich… where we enjoyed a dinner of Bratwurst, potatoes, and beer (another restaurant out of a ‘30s movie), before heading out in the rain to find our hotel.

The Steigenberger Bellerive Au Lac is located right on Lake Zurich across from a swim house and boat harbor. We were greeted with wonderful Zurich-accented-English, which sang to us as we registered. Unfortunately, we were informed, rain was in our future. But since Zurich was to be a respite between heavy touring, we didn’t care. We both know the city well, have stayed here numerous times, and really just wanted days to rest, ride boats, walk streets and sleep. All the Steigenberger hotels have a theme of healthy foods and natural products which were advertised in all their literature which coated the room. Many of their hotels are spas and this one in the heart of Zurich also offered a spa and massage center. The four Steigenberger women (couldn’t tell which were daughters or mothers) have created a cookbook (also in our room), and their restaurant menus focus on the healthy life style. “Scmeckt gut, tut gut” is their motto.

The room itself was modern and a little sterile, but perfectly comfortable once we’d ordered a few extra pillows. (Maybe having one flat pillow is part of being healthy?). As a slight aside: my only question is why do all European hotels, no matter how simple or elegant believe that sandpaper is the best kind of toilet paper to be provided? Is it the problem of recycled paper losing its softness? Or is it some sort of barbaric custom to ensure that one has a truly uncomfortable experience? It harks back to the 60’s when we both first traveled here, and at that point I thought it still was recovery from the war, but now I think it’s just the way they like it. Ah, the travails of travel in foreign lands and how I miss a good roll of Scotts or Charmin.

Before falling wearily into our bed we looked out from our balcony to the lovely view at night of tour boats lit up as they glided down the lake, and sail boats at anchor… backlit by the city lights.

May 19th – Zurich, Switzerland

An overcast day, as promised, which meant that steamboat rides to see the mountains were out of the question since the mountains were hidden in clouds or fog. Instead we ambled through the town re-acquainting ourselves with old haunts, having a bite to eat, window shopping along the Bahnhofstrasse and enjoying a delightful Italian meal at Frascati, a restaurant ‘chain’ in Switzerland serving superb Italian food. I love listening to the Swiss speak German with their broad accent and their guttural inflections. I think I speak fairly reasonable German, but I was hard pressed to understand people even when they were simply counting to ten. I kept thinking of the wonderful friend of Mother’s – Heidi Kaplan from Ann Arbor – the wife of a well known mathematician who’d grown up in Zurich and had the same wonderful lilt and sing-song quality when she spoke English. Swiss-German is as close as one can get to making German almost melodic, and that’s going some. I remember Heidi learning Italian, which she thought was the most melodic of all the European tongues, and the combination of Swiss-spoken Italian was delightful to hear as she would read aloud from Dante and other of her favorite poets.

We also noted as we meandered the streets that the people of Zurich, like those we saw in Barcelona, are really quite attractive. Bob is focused more on the young ladies, and I tend to watch the fashion statements being made by people shopping at the COOP or sitting in the cafes – tailored, muted colors but stylish. Absolutely everyone seems glued to a cell phone which has become the major jewelry adornment worn by all. It is hard to think that there was a time when one actually used hard-wired telephones, or as we tourists often found, going to the post office to make calls. Ah, those days of yore.

 But then one thinks about the boys a mere eighty years ago and their major means of communication was letters and very slow telegrams. I’m not so sure I don’t miss that means of communication. You could truly disappear from the world for weeks on end, and no one expected to hear from you. And when you wrote a letter you took the time to think about what you wanted to say and how you wanted to say it. It was a more measured form of communication without the ‘looseness’ brought about by the cell-phone and e-mail, with the benefit and all the drawbacks of immediacy. I’m not sure I would like to have letters taking months to reach their destination, because by the time a parent or friend had received, read, and replied to that letter, and you received their answer, it could be a month and their concerns voiced about your travels would already be ancient history.

All those lovely books and letters of travelers experiencing the grand tour – for the most part they have become bloggers – of which I too have become an aficionado. The benefit of this blog is that I capture impressions and thoughts every day, which serves as my own diary, and by making it available to others, I write once for all without having to repeat myself over and over again. The negative is that perhaps for some there is more detail than they need, and unfortunately no one gets those wonderful postcards which are later attached to the refrigerator as the recipient thinks “ah, that’s where they are” – which of course is wrong, because by the time the post card reaches the reader, the traveler is already home.

May 20th – Zurich

We awoke praying for a good day but were met with the same raw, cold, clammy weather that makes one want to stay under the duvet all day long. But we gathered our wits and our umbrellas and decided to walk around the ‘old town’, doing more window shopping and people-watching. Both proved successful.

Zurich is not a town endowed with a ton of interesting museums or sites. It’s like many towns in Switzerland focused on the out-of-doors, and business. After vibrant Barcelona, it reminded us more of Vienna – an old town that serves its citizens well, but does not depend on tourism for its basic existence.

Since Switzerland was ‘neutral’ during WW II (or so they wanted us to believe) nothing was bombed, leaving all the lovely old buildings proudly intact and able to proudly identify the date that they were built… which often goes back to the 16th or 17th century. It is an amazingly clean and orderly city and you know immediately that the Swiss- and not just our hotel chain - care about their health since it seemed that every third store on the side streets or ‘gasse’ was an apothecary or health food store. Along the main Bahnhofstrasse interspersed between all the high end fashion stores were beautiful jewelry and watch shops with wonderful modern, incredibly expensive bijou for the well-heeled visitor. This is the street where one definitely window-shops and leaves one’s VISA card safely tucked away.

Bob noted that while Switzerland was always an expensive country, it seemed exceptionally expensive now. He rightly concluded that the very inflationary prices which Switzerland is obliged to charge exist because Switzerland chooses to remain outside the EU and to continue using the Swiss Franc. Their Franc is pegged to the dollar, but since their surrounding neighbors are all on the Euro, they have to inflate their prices to keep on a par with the rest of Europe. As a result a cup of coffee in the EU countries is ‘equally priced’ with a cup of coffee in Switzerland…but it does give one heart palpitations when a breakfast of juice, coffee and pastry costs thirty Swiss Francs (or American dollars), and a Starbucks regular coffee starts at 4.5 Swiss Francs (almost 8 for a latte!). Switzerland was always pricy, but right now it seems downright prohibitive. And we’re outta here!

Tomorrow is another full day on trains. We love our train rides where we have plenty of time to enjoy the scenery, read books, bone up on the sites to see in the next city, or just listen to our iPods or nap. And, there are only two long travel days left on our agenda…which means that this Journey is coming to an end as well. We have very mixed reactions to that.