It’s Tuesday so this must be Zurich…

After the world’s least enjoyable flight (no sir, you actually don’t need to have your seat reclined so far it takes out my kneecaps.  No sir, not even for the full 11 hours of flying time.  No sir, especially not when you have a body odour issue that you really should take a closer look at), we arrived in Zurich at 6.30 in the morning feeling and looking like shit.  Well, let’s be honest about these things.

Took a cab into town because I think there’s a good chance we would have killed someone (or each other) if we’d tried to navigate the public transport system (despite it apparently being one of the best in the world), convinced the highly unfriendly person at reception to give us a room despite check-in time not being for another several hours, and then cheerfully failed to sleep for a few hours in the world’s smallest hotel room.  Seriously, it’s tiny.  And some ‘interesting’ design decisions to go with it – like no air con, or ventilation of any sort except the windows that open out directly onto the street outside so you can’t leave them open when you’re not around.  But hey, it was cheap and it’s central … and it’s clean … so it could be worse.  And I really shouldn’t complain, because Zurich is actually a lovely city.

Wonderful architecture, highly efficient (well, it is close to the German border after all…) and generally a very attractive place to spend a few days.  We did the ultimate tourist thing and spent a couple of hours on a trolley bus city tour thingmibob which was  surprisingly interesting, then took the train to the ‘mountain’ (read: small hill) that overlooks Zurich and proceeded to get almost blown off the observation tower when the weather took a bit of a turn for the worse.  Good views though, despite that … and despite Bec having her sunglasses blown clean off her face and down a hill somewhere.  Bugger.

Played the traditional ‘wander-round-a-foreign-city-trying-to-find-something-worth-eating’ game in the evening (yes, we did eventually get fed) and then crashed out, suitably exhausted.  Today dawned much more cheerfully, which was fortunate given that we had a tour out to the countryside to go on.  Despite my usual dislike of packaged tours, this was actually pretty good … the Swiss countryside is lovely, the whole place looks like it should be on a postcard somewhere.

Went to a cheese factory (well obviously we had to buy a suitably large amount), up a cable car in the Alps to the top where (when the fog cleared) you could see several countries and some remarkable views, wandered round the spectacular Swiss  village of Appenzalle, went through a chocolate factory which I think had to close to restock after Bec made her purchases and then back to Zurich where we bought some wine and crackers and sat in the park to enjoy the ultimate European experience.

Very enjoyable it was, and a damn sight more enjoyable than being back home in the middle of winter, I have to say – despite being caught in a downpour on the way home.  Just meant we had to shelter in a bar until the rain eased off – bugger, huh?  More city exploration tomorrow and then onto Paris in the evening…