An Unprogrammed Day in Zurich April 5, 2023

 An Unprogrammed Day in Zurich April 5, 2023

Today is "embarkation day," as we are officially under Viking's "wing."  We weren't sure whether they would make us change rooms but decided not to worry about it.  We had a rather delightful hotel breakfast. Since there are no scheduled Viking tours today, we set out on our own using the GPS My City app we first used in Bergen, Norway, last summer.  One of the tours is an hour-long tour of Zurich's "old town."

We made our way to the beginning spot - Bürkliplatz, a town square named for Arnold Bürkli. It is situated in the historic Alpenquai area near Lake Zurich. It is a truly picturesque site and seems to serve as the hub for the city's tram lines. There is a lake-front park, called the Seeuferanlage, and an arboretum and aviary nearby. I loved the flower clock.

Another great site was the statue of Ganymede. The sculpture was designed by the artist Hermann Hubacher as the "Abduction to Olympus," unveiled by the City of Zurich in 1952. Ganymede and the eagle face each other as a larger-than-life bronze sculpture. Ganymede stretches his right arm vertically toward the sky away from the bird while the latter tries to communicate with the youth. Hubacher interprets the abduction quite differently, namely illustrating through the hand stretched towards the sky that it is Ganymede himself asking Zeus to take him up. 

Also, in the Bürkliplatz area, we saw a wonderful old Ferris wheel with a line of children waiting to go up.

We also stopped in front of Fraumunster Kirche (Church of Our Lady). Zurich's skyline is dotted with church spires, but the Fraumunster is the most remarkable, in my opinion.  It has a slender blue spire that can be seen all over the city. In 853, Emperor Ludwig founded a Benedictine convent on the site, and his daughter became the first abbess of the convent. The present church dates from the mid-13th century, but the original crypt from 874 remains beneath the church. The convent was closed with the Reformation in 1524, and the last abbess donated the church and abbey to the City of Zurich. It was remodeled in 1970 with the installation of beautiful stained glass windows by Marc Chagall. The northern side of the church hosts a red-orange window called "Prophet." The eastern side windows are named "Jacob," "Christ," and Zion," and the south wall window is called "Law." 

Kirche Fraumünster

Kirche Fraumünster (side view)

Chagall Windows in Kirche Fraumünster

Zurich Churches

From there, we began to wander, stopping to see whatever took our fancy.  We wandered up a narrow, steep street, passing a florist along the way and snapping pictures of the lovely flowers for sale.

If I were at all artistic, I'd try to paint this

At the top of that street, we found the Predigerkirche (Preacher's Church), a non-denominational, very charming church with a magnificent organ.  There was a man and a woman up on the altar, reading and singing a service of some sort - even though there was just one other man (besides us) in the church.

Predigerkirche

Pussy Willows

Two lovely organs in Predigerkirche

By now, it was past lunchtime, and we wandered into an interesting restaurant called Tid Bits. Jeff was hungry and found himself a plate and took some rice, potato salad, and a few green beans from the buffet and grabbed a bottle of what turned out to be some sort of tea with orange juice and apple juice.  

After our very expensive dinner from a very limited menu last night, we decided that we would enjoy sharing a bottle of good wine and some bread, cheese, and apple slices for our dinner, so we went in search of a wine shop (Martel Wein am Bellevue, where a very lovely sales person pointed us to two different French wines - a traditional Chardonnay, and a Chablis Chardonnay.  

We next found a little grocery shop and purchased some lovely rolls/baguettes along with a Gruyere, a Camembert cheese, and a couple of apples. We loaded everything into the backpack and headed back downtown to catch the tram back to our hotel.  As I sat down on the bench to wait, I noticed four police officers interrogating a couple of men. 

It wasn't clear what the problem was, but I think they were accusing them of pickpocketing. Our tram came before we saw the final outcome.

Back at the hotel, we had a long nap and enjoyed our "feast" of wine and cheese (which I forgot to photograph), but we enjoyed it enough to do a repeat tomorrow night, so I'll take a picture then.

Tomorrow, we will join our Viking cruise!