Zurich diaries – 1 with camera and without plan

Disclaimer – This post may not be a cookie cutter guide for anyone visiting Zurich but an effort to encourage friends and readers to explore a city on its own . Conducted tours , guide sharing the same script is good but not all the times . 

– And the holiday comes to an end . Its back to work from Monday , god knows whats happening in office . Mails, escalations, phew .. I said to Madhushree as we checked in to our hotel room in Zurich.

– You can think about it on the way back in the flight or better on Monday – lets enjoy our last day of the trip – Madhushree replies with a lot of assurance as always.

Zurich was our last stop before heading back home from Switzerland.

After an amazing experience of one of its kind yodeling festival in Interlaken,  which was till wee hours of the morning (read the experience here ) with a heavy heart and groggy eyes, we reached Zurich .

We were put up at Leonardo Boutique Hotel which was by all means a decent one with a very helpful front office attendant having a radiant smile . For most of the tour of Switzerland we moved around on our own and with our earlier experience of Montreux (read here) we planned to go the same way in Zurich too .

The lady in the reception handed over the city map , a city tour guide was already there in our room and we started planning . Without much of result we decided to explore the city but a visit to Lake Zurich was a must. The Rhine falls were a must watch when one is in Zurich, however for lack of time, we decided to give it a pass.

We boarded the tram – a famous and common public transport at Zurich and headed towards Bahnhofstrasse one of the busiest and famous shopping streets of world . The tram rides are most convenient in Zurich.  One can find a schedule at every stop and the other than snowfall the schedule is accurate to minute . Our exploration starts .

Although not amongst the top 10 fashion capital of world, we got fascinated by the fashion quotient and the trendy shoes that people were wearing around . My camera got into action . It was here that all of a sudden we saw a huge parade of the LGBT community of Zurich and the memories of the same are still fresh and worth enough for a separate blog .

While walking around the place just outside one of the many Lindt chocolate shops we came across this 3 wonderful street artists who were full of life , singing, dancing, playing the guitar and celebrating . Celebrating life .

While moving around in Bahnhoffstrasse we caught a glimpse of St Peters Church one of the four main churches of old town of Zurich

We headed towards the Railway station HB (Hauptbahnhof) to confirm the validity of our railway passes for the next days travel to the airport . When we entered the station, we were surprisingly greeted by loud music and bevy of beauties practicing dance for a performance in the evening ( which we came to know later) . The roving eye and shutter both got busy . Madhushree is understanding most of the times .

After that we headed towards the famous  Lake Zurich ( post coming up) and on our way back we were lucky enough to see the famous Zurich Opera House

In Part  2, I share my experience of first time watching a LGBT parade and a romantic walk around lake Zurich