Quick Facts
- Date
- Wednesday, 21 December 2022 — Day 2 of 11
- Tour
- Extended guided city tour, about 4 hours, with the lake ferry and Felsenegg cable car included
- Region
- Zurich, Switzerland
- Covers
- Bahnhofstrasse, Grossmünster, Lake Zurich ferry to Horgen, Felsenegg cable car
- Good for
- A relaxed full day mixing city sights and lake views, light on walking
A Gentle Start to the City
We had arrived in Zurich the evening before, on 20 December, and checked into the hotel that night. Breakfast set the tone before we joined a four-hour Zurich city tour. Zurich is often ranked among the cities with the best quality of life, and that morning we began to see why.
A tall spruce on a quiet corner, beside a red-brick apartment building.
Shops set into the arches of a railway viaduct on Viaduktstrasse.
We passed the castle-like Swiss National Museum, built in 1898 to hold the country's cultural history collection, and made our way along Bahnhofstrasse with its polished storefronts. The Opera House, which opened in 1891, came into view along the way. The city felt refined without ever feeling overwhelming.
Einstein, Zwingli, and a 1946 Speech
As the tour bus moved toward the lake, our guide pointed out ETH Zurich, where Einstein once studied and worked, and showed us the building where he had stayed. It was a small moment, but one that made the city feel more personal. Nearby, the twin towers of the Grossmünster mark the church where Huldrych Zwingli began preaching the Reformation in 1519. We crossed the Münsterbrücke for the view back toward the towers.
A circus tent by the Limmat, with the green spire of the Fraumünster behind.
In front of the Grossmünster's twin towers, with the Limmat behind.
A plaque set into the cobblestones near the university marks a speech Winston Churchill gave in Zurich in September 1946, titled "Europe Arise." Only a year after the war ended, he called for a "kind of United States of Europe." Historians often cite the speech as an early step toward the European Union. Our daughter stood and stared along the plaque for a while, which for an eight-year-old is a fair amount of attention to give postwar diplomacy.
Book the lake ferry and the Felsenegg cable car with the city tour, as our itinerary did. That makes a full day with little walking. Bring warm layers for the ferry and the viewpoint, which is colder than the city.
Across the Water to the Silver Coast
The coach followed the Gold Coast, the Goldküste, to Meilen, the lakeside towns on Zurich's wealthier shore. There we boarded a ferry across the lake to Horgen on the Silver Coast, the Silberküste, the more modest opposite shore. The lake stretches about 40 kilometres toward the Alps, and the crossing gave us a slow view back over the water.
On the ferry's upper deck, with the far shore ahead.
The open lake, with villages along the far shore.
Felsenegg by Cable Car
From Horgen the coach took us to Adliswil, where the Luftseilbahn Adliswil–Felsenegg climbs to the ridge above the lake. The line has run since 1954. At the top, the viewpoint looks over Zurich, the lake and, on a clear day, the snow-capped Alps. The restaurant at Felsenegg made a good place to warm up before we headed back.
The Drive Back
The forest around Felsenegg was quiet, and the road back passed small villages on the hillsides. By the time we headed back toward the city, the light was already fading.
Heading Back
The tour ended at the meeting point rather than the station, so we walked the roughly two kilometres back to our hotel, the Ibis Zurich City West. The tram would have cost 3 CHF, but the walk gave us one more look at the city as the evening settled in.
