1982 - Home Leave to England - Zurich

Sunday August 1, 1982, Zurich

What a lovely day we have had. Perfect weather – almost too hot and as it is Switzerland’s National Day today we had a free fireworks display.

What a great flight we had – and what an airline!! Free newspapers, free drinks, nice cutlery and crockery – and glass glasses – not a sign of plastic anywhere.

There was a cold collation shortly after takeoff which was tasty and washed down by a very palatable Swiss red wine, topped off by an excellent coffee and a couple of Pere William liqueurs. Matt dropped off to sleep pretty promptly but Rab and I watched the film – one of Neil Simon’s titled “Only When I Laugh” which we enjoyed. I managed to doze on and off for about one and a half hours, so am feeling a bit groggy now.

Breakfast on the plane was not so hot – the croissants were good but not even SwisAir can keep eggs, cooked twelve hours earlier, in a reasonable condition. By the time we were up and about we were over Yugoslavia and the sun was up. Unfortunately there was a thick cloud layer  so there was nothing to see. It was the same coming in to Zurich – thick fog/mist which reduced visibility to about twenty five metres.

We were through Immigration before you could say knife and by the time we got to the baggage collection our suitcases were there. Don’t know how the Swiss do that! After changing some money, we caught the train into town – f3.60 each for the nine minute ride. The fog had burned off at this stage so we had a good view of the town as we trudged up to the Hotel du Theatre where we were staying.

 

First sight of Zurich

Very nice hotel with a pleasant manager who found two rooms for us so we could check in right away – it was about 08.00 by this time. (The manager was a very nice man, but although we stayed in his hotel a number of times over the years, he never gave any sign of recognising us. We used to wonder how many Zimbabwean guests he had?) We all showered, which was very refreshing and then went down to the Tourist Office where we caught a bus for a most interesting tour of the city and environs.

Very different from an African landscape

It is a really beautiful place with lovely woods alternating with green fields and fat Swiss cows dotting the landscape with the occasional bell ringing out. I was surprised to see a good deal of maize growing – had always thought of that as an African crop since it is an essential part of the diet in Africa. I thought of wheat as being the European equivalent.

One of the stops was the zoo, where we saw interesting European animals including roebuck, ibex, bears. While we were looking around, the back window of the bus imploded. We were not on the bus when it happened and although we were seated at the back, we said we didn’t mind as we would get some fresh air that way. We weren’t that lucky of course because all the exhaust fumes blew back through the broken  window and made the rest of the trip rather unpleasant. We also went up a cableway which gave us a beautiful view of the lake although as it was so hot, there was a bit of a haze so we couldn’t see all the details.

Me and Matt by the lake waiting for a fahrt

After we got back to the city from our tour we slowly made our way down the main shopping street – Hauptbahnstrasse – to the quay at the foot of the street where we aimed to catch a ferry for a “Kleiner Fahrt” around the lake. We just missed one, so while we waited for the half hour until the next one, we had a light lunch of grilled sausage and rye bread – zehr goed. I loved the trip around the lake which took about one and a half hours although Rab and Matt were a bit sleepy because it was zehr heiss. There are so many beautiful houses all along the shore – they must be worth a fortune – and so many pleasure craft too.

 

Some of the lakeside properties

We walked back to our hotel after getting an ice cream each and stumbled on a hippy colony with some really weird kids in it camped on the river bank. We all crashed for a couple of hours and woke up feeling much better after about 18.30 after three hours of very welcome sleep. We walked down to  local restaurant which had been recommended by the hotel staff – the Urania. (We always used this ploy when we travelled. Asking hotel staff where they would eat, rather than where tourists would eat led us to some excellent – and cheap – meals.) Actually we nearly missed the restaurant because although we had the name we were looking for a place called Oranje – an Afrikaans word pronounced in the same way phonetically – Ooranya - as the Swiss-German Urania.

We had a most pleasant meal of Veal and Rosti for Rab, Goulash for me and Schintzel for Matt. A couple of beers were included for f42.50 (about US$20). Not bad at all. We caught a train down to the quay and watched the fireworks for a while before catching another train back to the hotel.

And so to bed after a long but excellent day – we couldn’t get over the fact that sunset was only about 21.00. The only little cloud on the horizon is that Rab and Matt were at loggerheads. He is very annoying sometimes and seems to take an almost perverse pleasure in riling Rab, but she is very short with him at times. I hope that a good night’s sleep will help.