We woke up craving some good coffee, and since this hotel didn’t have an included breakfast we went out to the station to look for a cafe. We found one right across from the station – it was called Gourmet Cafe and it looked like they mostly serve champagne and desserts during the day but they were serving lattes to us. The staff wore suits, there was gold and brass and wood and it looked like a pretty upscale place. The coffees were great, and even came with a tiny sliver of Swiss chocolate to snack on.
On our way back to our hotel we decided we could go for one more cup of coffee so we stopped in at the hotel bar/restaurant (open 24 hrs) and had a coffee there. The hotel we were staying in was quite nice, in a renovated building that once included a movie theater. They decided to go with the movie theme at the hotel and so there was a lot of art deco design and even a free movie every night in one of the theater rooms that they preserved.
Today’s plan was all about sightseeing in and out of Zurich. The last time we had come there wasn’t much time for looking around because we happened to arrive during a huge street festival. It is an annual festival and by chance we had missed it by only two days this year – good timing! We went to the lakeside to see two big sights: Fraumunster and Grossmunster. Two elaborate cathedrals that make up the skyline of that side of Zurich.
It seemed like Chinese group tourism was making a comeback as there were more than a few groups of Chinese tourists walking around. They could have been from Taiwan – not sure – but it has been a long time since we’ve seen as many as there were before the pandemic.
Kuniko had requested getting out of town to visit St. Gallens to see an elaborate cathedral, and a historic library. We decided to get some train tickets and take a ride out of town. We were surprised at the price. Two round trip tickets cost about 110 Swiss francs – wow! It is much cheaper to travel by train in Japan, and I thought it was expensive there.
It was about an hour on a double decker train to the north. As we traveled we had a top floor view of the Swiss countryside. As we discovered last time it is like taking a train through a fairy tale. Every area is immaculately sculpted and devoid of any kind of weed or invasive vines. There are forests surrounded by green fields, a surprising amount of manufacturing and offices in clumps around the cities, and in an odd contrast some creative graffiti near the otherwise clean rail lines.
Later it was a big contrast to see the countryside of other countries – Switzerland was just at a different level.
Eventually the conductor came by the check our tickets, and we were surprised to see that he was like twelve years old. Then we noticed that he was accompanied by another staff who was monitoring his work and helping him with his job. I’m guessing it was a sort of work trial or other education program – but it caught us off guard. He did a good thought!
We arrived in St. Gallens hungry, so we stopped at the first outdoor cafe that we came to. It was outside the tourist area and more of a business lunch kind of place, but we were so hungry we didn’t care. The staff was overworked and surprisingly not so good at English, but we managed to order some food and drinks. I had a burger and fries (my first choice was sold out) and Kuniko had a club sandwich. The burger was much better than I expected – a long ways better than a McDonald’s burger.
After we paid the bill (and the tip) the waiter’s English skills suddenly improved and he commented that he had visited Japan and really enjoyed it. He seemed like a pretty happy guy, just too busy at work at the moment.
After lunch we walked through the historic part of the town with a lot more shops and restaurants, and came at last to the abbey and cathedral area. It was covering a wide space and the cathedral was quite tall and dramatic, decorated inside in a baroque style. We were kind of spoiled after the spectacular cathedral in Malta, but this was still worth the trip. We had to buy special tickets to see the library, and although they were expensive it was eventually worth seeing. We still had to pack our bags into lockers, and wear some funny slippers before we could enter.
The library was filled with as much woodwork as books and although the total size wasn’t big the room was quite impressive. We’ve been to a few libraries in our journeys (and we were to see another one in Budapest), but this was one of the better ones. The highlight was a giant globe painted to represent the earth as they knew it at the time, and it was interesting to see the mistakes and misunderstandings in how they perceived the world.
At one point a class of kids was allowed to climb the staircase and walk around the top balcony. Adults weren’t invited so it pays to be a kid sometimes.
There were more exhibits underground but we couldn’t really figure out how to get there. Another exhibit in a separate building had some important local historical significance, and the staff seemed eager for us to stay and watch a movie about it, but we felt like we had seen what we wanted to see and ducked out without watching the movie.
On the way out of town we stepped into Flying Tiger to look for anything interesting (not this time) and then caught a train back to Zurich. Since we were on our own today we tried to think about where/what to eat, but after all the heavy food we’ve been consuming we thought about just buying some wine and cheese and staying in at our hotel.
With the help of Google Sensei I found an expensive department store with a big cheese selection, so we walked directly from the train station to the underground department store for some shopping. The cheese was kept in a temperature controlled room, and the staff was nice enough to let us taste whatever we wanted. It was a huge selection of Swiss cheeses, and it was hard to limit myself. I ended up buying three types (100 g each) and the price was only 13 Swiss francs. It would have costed ten times that back in Japan.
Besides cheese we picked up a beet salad, some stuffed peppers, and a bottle of Prosecco made in Zurich (really?) and a big jug of pineapple juice. We set everything up in a sort of buffet in our hotel room, and enjoyed drinking, eating and resting. These kind of breaks from traditional western dining experiences are very refreshing.
After dinner we walked around town a little more to stretch our legs. Down by the lake we sat and spaced out – watching people fly a drone over the water, swans begging for food from people lakeside, and a boat coming in from the lake to drop off some hotel guests. Eventually we walked back towards the hotel and stopped in for a yogurt passion fruit gelato to eat on the way.
Soon after that we were hitting the hay early. Tomorrow it is time to pack up and continue the journey to our next destination.
