Zurich, Switzerland

Here for the views and chocolates.

Zurich is absolutely one of my favorite places in Europe. It was our first city we stayed at in Europe and it is one for the books! Between the food, the transportation and the overall atmosphere, I would move here in a heartbeat.

Transportation

I cannot express how amazing the transportation system is in Switzerland. Coming from America where we have minimal public transportation and everyone has to have their own vehicle to get around, we were blown away. Every mode of transportation we took was exactly on time. We started with a bus from the airport to our hotel which wasn’t very far from the airport. This was our first time ever being in Europe so we didn’t really know what we were doing at all. We found the bus we were supposed to get on from what our hotel had told us, but we didn’t know how to get bus tickets. The bus driver did not speak good English but pointed to a kiosk back over by the entrance to the airport. We walked over there and were able to buy tickets for the bus. Just know that the kiosks are outside close to the entrance not over where the buses park. Everything was in German so we weren’t sure of all the names of the stops that the bus was making. I had our hotel pulled up on Google maps as we road the bus and we did get off at a stop that was a little too far from our hotel so we ended up walking there but it wasn’t too terrible.

Most hotels in Europe don’t allow you to check in until around 3:00pm so plan accordingly with your flights and transportation. Also, most places make you pay taxes when you check in and only in cash. So make sure you have enough cash to pay the taxes. -Kylie

There train system was spectacular! They have an app called “ZVV” and it shows live times of all the different trains. It was confusing at first because we did not have the app and we were looking at the screen that was at the top of the train station near our hotel. It was all in German so figuring out the names of what stop we were at, what stop we want to go to and then the different names of the trains was confusing. But we didn’t realize that the screen was a touch screen and at the bottom of the screen there was a button to change the language to English. Once we did that we were able to figure it out much easier. We downloaded the app and figured out the names of the trains that took us from our hotel to the Zurich main station and we were riding around like pros.

Above is what the app looks like while looking at your train times. At the top you enter where you are. We were at the stop called, “Opfikon” near our hotel and we wanted to go to “Zurich Mainstation” which is the main train hub in Zurich. Now right under that it says there are two trains coming that have similar ETA. The first one is train number S15 named “Rapperswil SG” it will be at your stop at 8:57 picking you up on platform 2 (Pl. 2). It is a 9 minute ride to Zurich Mainstation and will arrive there at 9:08. This ride will cost you CHF 6.80 (which is 6.80 in Swiss Francs).

While in Zurich we got the Zurich Card that paid for transportation, we got the 72 hour card for about CHF 56 per person. Make sure you have paid for your transportation because you are allowed to get on every mode of transportation without having to pay or check your cards. It is all based on an honors system. But if they do a random check and you have not paid, you will get fined for a ton of money and can be banned from using their transportation in the future and you do not want that. So make sure you either buy your tickets on the ZVV app for each train ride, buy the Zurich Card or a Swiss Travel Pass. Going from Switzerland to another country I used Trainline to buy tickets. -Kylie

Food

The food was SO good in Zurich! My husband got to spend his birthday while we were in Zurich so we celebrated with a Black Truffle Swiss Fondue with potatoes and bread. We also ordered a dished that was bread with Swiss Fondue and onions and it was delicious. We walked away laughing that all we had for dinner was cheese, bread and potatoes but man oh man it was worth it. We live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA so we are use to expensive prices living in a resort mountain town. Switzerland was definitely more expensive than Italy or Germany when it came to food but I would say I wasn’t too blown away by the prices because that’s about how much we spend at home. Now when you are eating out every day for every meal it is going to add up. The only meal that I was shocked at the price was our continental breakfast that was served at our hotel. It was $25 a person per day and at first it was wonderful but they never changed it up so eating the same food for five days in a row became very difficult. Next time we go to Switzerland we have discussed going to the grocery store (which there is one in the mainstation) and getting more food to make rather than eating out all the time. We also didn’t know until the very end of our trip but the pretzels are AMAZING! So when in Switzerland eat all the pretzels you can even if they are cold. Some have butter, cheese and meats in them and they are to die for.

Things To Do

We did a lot of day trips out into the country side and to other towns while we were in Zurich but our favorite thing to do while we were there was the Lindt Home of Chocolate Museum. We did the tour and learned about the history of chocolate and how Lindt Chocolate came to be. We got to try so many different flavors and types of chocolate and it is SO much better than the Lindt chocolate we have in the USA. After the tour we ate at their little cafe inside and OMG it was so good! We each got a hot chocolate: amazing! Nic got a warm sandwich and I got a cold sandwich and his was SO much better! I would highly recommend going and ordering a warm sandwich with a hot chocolate of a flavor you like! We purchased our tickets online and way in advance because they do sell out very quickly. In order to get over to the museum we took the train and I just Google which train stop was the closest to the museum and entered it in my ZVV app. This is definitely on our bucket list to experience again and next time we want to take one of the chocolate making classes!