Zurich - Day 2

First official day in Zurich.  It's still really cold here.


We visit the Zurich tourism center at the main Zurich bahnhof (trainstation) - Zurich HB.

While the trains are impeccably punctual, figuring out how to use the trains in Zurich is not that straightforward.  The locals here tell me that the system changed recently and even the locals sometimes have trouble figuring out which tickets to buy.  I'll write another post on this later.

At the tourism office, we take the guided city walking tour to help us get familiar with the city.  It starts at Zurich HB with a walk down a big shopping street.

The tour is very informative, but I don't remember (or listen to) a lot of the details.  The main shopping street had a lot of name brand stores with really high prices.  I'm guessing Zurich (or Switzerland) is not a place to visit if you're interested in shopping.

There's one big river that goes through the Zurich's old town area and dumps into the lake.  The tour guided us along both sides of the river here and there.  Above is one right next to the river and below is one a bit higher up with a nice vantage point.

When not going along the river, the guide led us through a lot of narrow streets in old town.

 The streets are all a bit curvy, so it was easy to lose our bearings.  Good for just exploring.

Zurich, Switzerland

First day (actually evening) in Zurich.  It's colder than we expected.

Zurich Binz Train Station

Trains are +/- 15 seconds on time.  The locals tell me that if they are 2 minutes late, they make an announcement along with alternate transportations - a bus will come by to pick you up to keep you on schedule.  I'm also told that all the trains are synchronously timed with the traffic lights to ensure everything runs according to schedule.  

Our first meal (dinner) is at Zeughauskeller, noted in the travel guides as a good place to get authentic Swiss food.  It has a tavern style, so we ended up sharing a table with another couple.

  

Ordered a local beer, onion soup (not pictured), and some dish I forgot the name of, but is marked on the menu as "Must for visitors!"  

Everything is okay - the only remarkable thing was the check at the end of the meal for 60 CHF (about 65 USD).  

The waiters carry around portable credit card machines and this one showed two prices - one in CHF and one in USD.  I'm told you should pick your native currency.  I asked why, but forgot the reason.