The Wacky World of a Lazy Pig (AKA Simon)

Eurotrip Day 12 - Up to see Zurich from up high and some shopping for knives.

We hadn't done any planning for Zurich to allow us to go crazy and just explore the city when we arrived. Our tour book also didn't include anything about Zurich so that made planning even harder before and during the trip. The guided tours was a definite good choice for us to get a good glance of the landmarks and popular locations in Zurich. Our tour also inlcuded extra tickets to go to the top of a mountain to see Zurich from the top.

Our tour started a 9:45 am so we went to a local grocery store (called Co-op) to grab some breakfast and lunch. Food surprisingly isn't too expensive, compared to everything else in town that is. Beer is cheap as well, Carlsberg is 2 swiss francs for a 500mL can.

The tour bus are those familiar busses that has been given a makeover to look more like a classic red street car or trolley. It am sure many large cities have a tour company that uses the same type of bus. These tour busses were of course no match or those in London, but did get us around. The tour information was usually given by an automatic system. Slight changes were made to the automatic tour information to accomodate for detours due to traffic jams or construction.

The sites we were brought to we not spectacular. Zurich cannot compare to Paris or London, but definitely has a small city feel to it. Zurich, being the largest city in Switzerland, is only residence to 360,000 people. Around 80-90% of the zurich population live in rented apartments. Houses are nice but are quite rare in Zurich. The residential areas were almost always filled with small apartment buildings. Another fraction given to us by the tour guide was 60-70%. 60-70% of the economy of Zurich is related to banks or finances both directly and indirectly. Indirectly meaning if you own a restaurant that primarily serves employees at banks. If there were no bank employees to do business with, the restaurant wouldn't be able to thrive.

Seeing the city from a tour bus was definitely relaxing. We rode around the city seeing the main river and lake from different sides. We also got to check out the really nice University in Zurich. The university seems older than that of Carleton University. Students usually bike to school or just live close enough to walk. Then again, everything is quite close in Zurich.

With most of the city toured after around 2-3 hours of sitting on the bus, we made our way to train station to hop on a train for the second half of our adventure in Zurich. Our destination was on the outskirts of Zurich, at the bottom of mountain path which we could hike up. The ride was really quick an didn't have too much interesting. I was expecting more from the hike up to the top of the mountain. I guess since this was a touristy place, they couldn't make it too difficult for people to reach the top. The hike up was nonetheless quite tiresome. And with the heat and sun that day, hiking only made us sweat more and become more exhausted faster. Reaching the top would take around 15 minutes while we followed the main path, which was already marked out.

The best part of the hike was the reward of seeing the city from a nice view from the top of a mountain. From the top, I can definitely say that Zurich looks really nice because of the separation of the north and south part of the city. The river and lake play such a huge role in its beauty and with the hills surrounding the entire city. At the top of the mountain, there was also a nice observation tower. Climbing up this tower was really difficult, especially after hiking up the mountain. The land at the feet of the mountain are really nice and I bet one person could spend hours just standing on the tower absorbing and enjoying the moment.

With some extra energy in us, Steve and I decided that we would do some extra side hiking from the top of the mountain. The hike would take us around the smaller paths and back up to the top again. Roger was too tired to go with us and decided to roast himself under the sun while sitting on some nice tanning chairs. As we started walking, I kept noticing how Steve would continuously ask me and check if there were any bees around his head. Steve is afraid of bee stings because of how his skin reacts to a sting. I think he is actually allergic to bee stings or stings in general. The hike down revealed some nice side scenery that couldn't be seen from the top. Open feels of grass and well formed trees helped add extra touches to the moutain.

By the time we had gotten back up to the top, Roger was already waiting for us. We quickly hiked back down to the train stop and quickly got on the earliest train. The reason for the rush was to ensure that we didn't waste too much time that could have been used for shopping. If there was something I wanted to get from Zurich, it would have been either a new Swiss watch or a Swiss army knife. I myself was interested in the watches and looking for a nice and hip design.

As I had previously said, Zurich is a very expensive city. I was expecting a lot of domestic products to be sold at a fairly cheap price. To my surprise, Swatch watches were not really a bargain at all. Though the design were occasionally good, I couldn't see myself buy a simple design watch for 100 Swiss Francs or a pay 200-300 Swiss Francs for another with a more classy design. This was definitely a turn off as I was expecting to go home with a new watch, oh well. So, instead of buying a new watch for myself, I diverted my efforts towards finding a bargain swiss knife that had the tools I needed around the house or even when I was out. Swiss knives were infact cheaper than other places. What would normally sell for 60-70 Euros (90-100 Canadian Dollars) would sell for around 50-60 Canadian dollars in Zurich. Swiss Francs and Canadian exchange is almost exactly at 1 to 1.

Roger and Steve were also eager to buy some nice gifts for others. To search for the best price, we walked around the shopping district going through several large department stores and some souvenir shops that carried them. They always had a huge selection of knives. The best store displayed all models of the two Swiss Army knife companies, Victorinox and Wenger. When I looked at the knives, I personally like the Wenger designs for the knives. Almost all the new models' knives were locking blades whereas the knives from Victorinox aren't. The overall design from Wenger seem to be more practical as they are more ergonomic. In one shop, they displayed the ultimate swiss knife. It had all possible tools on it. The whole thing was around 1 foot in length.

In the end, we found out that the cheapest knives could be bought from our hostel. Though they only had Victorinox, I picked the model which had a locking blade and had the right tools to fit my needs. One thing I really liked asking people when I was looking at the different models available was "So who is the original Swiss Army knife company? Victorinox or Wenger?" Most people in Switzerland have a swiss knife and most of them said Victorinox. Wenger is a another company, but if you lookin on Wikipedia for Swiss Army Knife, you will find that Victorinox actually owns Wenger as of 2005, so it really doesn't matter.

We only stayed one night at the hostel wouldn't be staying tonight as we wanted to maximize the amount of time we spent in Rome. To do this, we would take a night train to Rome, meaning sleep on the train. Steve and Roger recommended that we reserve a 3 bed room on the train which left at around 11:00 pm. The shopping and random exploring didnt take too much time. Sitting down to eat in Zurich would guarantee a $20 CAD in our pockets. Knowing this, we decided to go the cheap way, buy some food at the groceries and just eat them outside the grocery store. Now I have got to say, eating a full roasted chicken (uncut and still in one piece) with your bare hands is really fun but messy.

With most of the city closed down after 6-7pm, there was really nothing else to see around the town. Wandering about seemed to be the only alternative to spending the time. Though walking aimlessly is usually not Roger's preference, he was defeinitely a good sport and came with Steve and I. Steve is always up for adventure and usually doesn't care if we get lost because getting lost is just another adventure for him. We ended up finding a church and sat the steps at the front for around 1 hour chatting about the trip so far and discussing the nice things we saw in Zurich.

When the time came to go to the station, we grabbed our bags and quickly headed over to the station. We stayed in a waiting room at the station after we realized that we had arrived way too early for the train. The night train is very different from regular trains. For one, there are no chairs anywhere and second, each bed room is really really really hot and stuffy. Our room only had 3 beds all on top of each other. I decided that I could make it easier for everyone else if I stayed on the topmost bed. I soon realized that it was a mistake to take the topmost bed. Why? Because it was hotter and more stuffy that the other two beds. I was so hard to sleep at first. And if you have ever tried sleeping on train, you would realize that a the sound of train tracks and heat never work well together when sleeping. Although the resulting sleep wasn't too bad, waking up several times in the middle of the night was quite frequent and annoying. One thing is for sure, the beer that we bought before we headed onto the train really helped us drown out the sounds and made sleeping a little easier.

Labels: eurotrip

posted by lazypig @ 11:34 AM