Sunday, April 15, 2012

Spring Break: Day 3

Spring Break: Day 3
Zurich, Switzerland 




          Day three of spring break took Tym and I to Zurich, Switzerland. Due to the train times available at that time, we were only able to stay in Zurich for one night and 3/4 of the next day. After spending the day in Munich visiting Dachau and the city centre, Tym and I boarded our night train to travel from Munich, to Austria to Switzerland and arrive around 11 pm that same night. We found our train no problem but once it started the ticket man came around and told us we did not have the correct tickets since that specific train was traveling through Austria. So to fix the problem he told us we each had to pay 16 euros, and then somehow together we only had to pay 12? Who knows, but it was better than having to pay 32 total! Besides that, we both slept, played games on the Ipad and talked about the rest of our trip! 
          Getting into Zurich we took the metro to find our hostel and had to walk 10 minutes from that station to get there. Booking hostels for Zurich was difficult because it was so expensive! The cheapest room we could find for the night was almost 50 euros per person and usually you can find rooms for around 20 per person in any other country. Rumors are true, Switzerland will eat your bank account! Going into several chocolate stores, plain candy bars were close to $10, literally insane how much everything cost! 


 
Some of the chocolate at the stores we visited! 


Chocolate stores getting ready for Easter! 


A picture of Swiss Francs! 

          Since we only had 3/4 of that monday to spend in Zurich, we could not really take a tour or travel to see anything because our time was so limited. We spent the day wandering around the city to see some of the big sights and spent most of our time sitting by the big lake that the city surrounds. Because our hostel was so expensive, we definitely ate our fair share of breakfast and might of taken a bit of bread, cheese and meat to make sandwiches for lunch! Hostels are supposed to be cheap, and that one wasn't, so we made sure we got our moneys worth and the sandwiches were delicious! We ate them next to the lake and watched the rowing teams practice while I fed the swans and Tym got mad because the birds wanted his sandwich :) 



Looking out over the lake in Zurich. 


There were so many swans! The biggest swans I have ever seen too! 




Tym eating my cheese and trying to save it from the birds. 

Eating my sandwich, while feeding it to the birds. 

Some of the little alleyways that are covered in shops! 


There was a model/photo shoot next to the waters edge so we watched it for a bit! 

Zurich does not have a huge metro system but there are trams everywhere! We always had to be looking out for trams or they would just run you over!


          Because Switzerland is surrounded by Italy, France and Germany I felt that it really did not have its own identity but that of the other countries. Zurich is in the Northeast corner of Switzerland, close to Germany and France. Walking around Zurich and going into shops, some people spoke French and others spoke German; the architecture is half French and half German. Crazy that one minute I could speak in French with a store keeper or whatnot and the next store, I could not communicate besides hand signals with Tym and I laughing the whole time. 


Some of the French architecture and the Swiss flag! 


          Zurich is beautiful and I hope that sometime in the future when I have more time and money I can travel back to go on a chocolate, cheese or Alps tour! Although our time was short I am glad we stopped because our train ride that afternoon to Rome was beautiful. I have never really seen mountains before especially not the world famous Alps! Words cannot describe how beautiful they were! The train we were on took us through tunnels and climbed up and down the Alps throughout the whole ride. It was breathtaking! 






Me sleeping with the Alps in the background. Magically this picture was on my phone when I woke up. 

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