Only a masochist...

...would sit in an aluminium tube with 300 others for 13 hours and at the end say that was fun!

6 this morning after flying through the night we arrived at Zurich a little the worse for wear.

Uplifted the bags, stopped at a kiosk for a coffee, stood in a queue for a quarter of an hour or so to purchase tickets for the train trip into town and then after a quick trip we alighted at the main Zurich station - "Zurich HB".

Despite having a map on the iPad showing the way to the hotel the construction work around the station confused and an elderly local saw our plight and took two other elderlies in hand and walked us to the main street and pointed us on our way.

After ambling approx. a kilometre up a hill (ok, a slight incline) humping two large and two small suitcases we arrived at our hotel at around 8.00am and as check-in wasn't until 3pm all we could do was drop the cases off and turn around and walk back into the city.

So began our look around Zurich.

We soon found that they were setting up for a 3 day street party - Zuri Fascht - which is held only every 3 years & not because of our arrival as I first thought.

There were marquees and beer tents going up all along the streets in and around the Limmat River and Lake Zurich foreshore - if the number of people they were obviously expecting arrive then Zurich town is going to rock over this weekend.

The downside from our point of view is however that these marquees hide some of the beautiful buildings but nevertheless the charm of the place is evident.









In a street side cafe we paid 5CHF i.e. approx $7.50 for two glasses of water with some breakfast!

A stroll down Bahnhofstrasse passed all the high end shops was an interesting excursion - this street (Strasse) is recognised as one of the top shopping streets in the world but other than a coffee at a Starbucks the wallet stayed locked away.



Showing the effects of 40 hours without proper sleep we made our way back to the hotel in the hope that we could checkin and rest up (& post this blog) before we venture out again for an early dinner - we have selected a beer hall in Bahnhofstrasse so that could be interesting.