Zurich Day 1

We woke up to these views out of our hotel window.  Pretty sweet.  The only issue with being above Zurich is getting down into Zurich.  You need to take a cab although I believe the hotel runs a shuttle bus that doesn't go to the location we necessarily want to be in.  I am going to figure out tonight how to take the shuttle and then take the tram to dinner.  The tram system here is supposedly incredibly efficient.  Already a day down and I can tell you that this is a very expensive town.  Might be more expensive than London.  Cleaner, greener and probably a better quality of life for those who don't love the insanity of London but in terms of cost, Zurich is not cheap.

We began the day in the older section of Zurich.  Winding stone streets lined with store fronts and apartments above.  Super cute.  We had breakfast at Caffe Henrici.  Located in a small square on the lowest end of the pitch so sitting outside gives you a complete view of what is happening in the square.  A very comfortable hang out place with wifi. 

Caffe Henrici is a great local coffee shop. Unbelievable cup of coffee.  I drink my coffee black but for some reason I opted for a latte this morning.  Fred went for the cappuccino.  Rich, delicious and you have to love the design on top. 

We all ordered the classic Swiss breakfast of muesli with fresh orange juice.  The muesli was mixed with Greek yogurt and chopped apples.  Not my thing.  Should have stuck with bread, butter and jam.

After breakfast we began our journey.  There are a variety of interesting small shops throughout Zurich.  I did research all over the web and found these two bloggers seemed to be right on the money.  Design Sponge Online and Fashion Bits and Bobs.  Design Sponge has a section with city guides that are really well done and pretty spot on, IMHO.  Our first stop was Chocomotion.  A chocolate shop that carries a small selection of chocolates that are packaged.  A super cute necklace with a piece of plastic chocolate hanging off of it we purchased for one of my nieces. 

Across the way was a shop that carried garden and pet supplies.  They had a serious selection of garden gnomes in the window.  Josh had to have one.  He had purchased a gnome in Paris done by an artist who had duplicated his original piece in plastic.  It is quite hilarious and he wants to add to his collection.

Continued our way down the streets.

Our next stop was at a store named On Y Va.  A nice mixture of men's clothes and shoes.  Fred got a few things.  Really well done.  Based on the success of this store we made our way over to Ding which is the women's store.  Ding, not so good.

On the way over there we saw this small standing food shop.  Dim Sum To Go.  A Swiss gentlemen is running the place with two Asian women pumping out the food inside. 

We decided to take a Coke light break and try the dumplings.  We had steamed pork buns.  Really spicy and delicious inside and the dough was the perfect texture.  Impressive.

Zurich reminds me a bit of Stockholm which is also situated on water.  You continue to cross back and forth across the river to get to other areas of the city.  Very clean.  So clean that people swim in the water.  Not so sure I'm dying to dive in but there is an area where people hang and swim which we will go check out later in the week.

They do like the bikes and the scooters.  Ample parking spaces, as there should be.  I hope NYC gets to be like that one day.  NYC seems more focused on ticketing scooters vs being glad to see other forms of transportation in the city besides cars and cabs. 

Over to Globus which is the big department store. 

We went upstairs and had lunch in the cafe.  Tuna salad, of course, for me.  It was also getting seriously hot out side and it was easy to walk in and sit in the nice air conditioning than scope out a cafe in the area. 

Downstairs is the marketplace.  We always love a good marketplace.  Ricks Picks will be carried here starting this Fall so we went in to check it out and see the competition.  Rick should rule here. 

The marketplace was really well done.  An interesting selection of products.  We picked up a basil infused oil that is outrageous.  The pizza above was in the refrigerator section.  It made me laugh.

We continued to walk and made our way over to Truffle.  Truffle is a chocolate shop where the owner takes her chocolate seriously and is really knowledgeable.  We picked up a variety of chocolates she recommended for later. 

Our last stop was Townhouse.  A store that is just a mixture of eclectic goods from the art they are showing that week to books to clothes to jewelry.  These books made us all laugh.  Emily picked up the book called Architects I Met And Liked and said to me, "if you owned this, it would be empty".  Then we started going through all the books and making comments.  Truth is, I do like the architects I am working with now on our beach house and always the optimist am going to believe that when the project ends, I will still like them and I am going to recommend them to everyone.

It was a great day.  We really got a feeling for the city walking from area to area, walking into stores for clothes and food.  Tomorrow, museums, galleries and the lake.

Back to the hotel.  Still waiting for my luggage.  The latest is that I will get it around 6 or 7.  Fingers crossed.