Category Archives: Switzerland

August 10 –

Well today was my last day of official visits. I spent the day with folks from the IT and Statistics Departments of the Swiss National Bank and had a day of interesting discussions on eStatistics, SDMX, web services and automated publications platforms. We didn’t meet at the main offices though; we met in the offices of the IT department which you get to by entering an unmarked door between an electronics store and a hairdresser!  I felt like I was in a spy movie!  Luckily, I didn’t have to rely on the shoe phone!

In the meantime, the family got on a train and traveled south the Lucerne to see if the cloudy but dry day would hold out for some sightseeing. After arriving in Lucerne, they wandered around town and across the famous wooden bridge over the lake. There they watched the resident swans struggle to swim in the incredibly high water. They grabbed lunch at a place on a backstreet and continued to walk around old town marveling at the abundance of souvenier shops when Zürich seems to have so few. After not really getting lost, they came upon Glacier Garden, a park/museum dedicated to the make-up of the local scenery attributable to glaciers. I have been assured that it’s *really* cool! Frank and Duncan really liked the glacial potholes, erosion caused by natural drilling/grinding forces as the glaciers were melting. Apparently, it’s a very strange phenomenon and these must be seen to be believed. Gillian’s favorite part was the maze of mirrors – corridors of mirrors that reflected everything with a similar floor pattern. They had to be very careful not to walk into a mirror that looked like a hall! The Garden is near the Lion monument – an allegorical symbol for the defeat of the Swiss Guards in 1792.

After this adventure, they worked to get back to the shores of the lake but there were souvenir stands in the way. Wallets lightened, they found the lake again and wandered along the shores looking at the clouds lowering over the mountains, the cruise boats going backwards and some angry swans. Apparently, they also found where some of the missing Zürich children have gone: they were in Lucerne being eaten by swans! (Okay, not really eaten but there were kids being chased by some of the swans so maybe that’s why they go into hiding!) A few ice cream cones later, they found themselves on the train back to Zürich where they met me, still hard at work in the hotel even after my meetings were over.

We finally got our Chinese food in Switzerland (now we’ve officially been here!) and got some more ice cream – my first serving actually – before heading back to repack and prepare to pick up the car tomorrow and head to France.

/san/

[Pedometer: 31, 722 or about 15.5 miles of which I probably managed less than 5! At least I only had *one* serving of ice cream!]

August 9 –

More rain as we awoke this morning but only drizzle so far. We breakfasted and headed out to explore more of Zürich. First on the agenda: find a laundromat! We checked with the tourist information stand in the main train station only to find out that there is only one in the city (?!?) and it is no where near the city center – or anything we are interested in. So it looks like clean laundry will have to wait until France. We then went to the rental car office nearby to make some changes to our reservation for Saturday. It turns out that we are leaving on the day of the biggest techno-rave in all of Europe! There’s a huge parade through the middle of Zürich and then there are parties all night long. So *that’s* why we couldn’t find a cheap hotel room in this town! So there will be many street closures and we were worried that we wouldn’t be able to get back from the rental car office to get to the hotel so we changed the place of pick-up to be closer to our hotel and away from all the party preparations. Whew!

Then it was museum time! We headed to the Swiss National Museum to see what we could learn about this country. What a place! We could have spent a week there and then probably still not seen everything. It suffered from what the kids called “no flow”: there wasn’t any logical progression through the exhibits which was a tad annoying. You start out in a series of rooms with religious art and artifacts from 800 AD through 1520 and then move on to the prehistoric rooms… There was some excellent displays of weaponry and costumes and a really cool tin soldier diorama of the battle of Morat from 1476. There were even loads of little tin dead guys! Other displays talked about the difference in Swiss life and worship before and after the Reformation. More really cool displays showed interior architecture common in middle class homes in the 17th century. One thing we all learned was that we need to learn more about European history!

Then it was time for lunch and we found ourselves in a European version of the Hard Rock Cafe – the beer was cold and the burgers were good and there was a huge plate of gummi bears from which you could help yourself! Yum! We contemplated visiting the clock and watch museum but became dubious when we found out it was inside a large jewelry store and they wanted 5 Francs each for us to go in…. hmmm….. so we wandered up the Bahnhoffstraße to get some chocolate instead!

We wandered around the old town for a while and visited St. Peter’s church – still in search of a candle to light in Switzerland – and found another alter-less edifice. Beautiful in its simplicity (great chandeliers!) but not a hint of stained glass to be seen.We did some more exploring and found some great views over the neighborhood houses down to the lake. Then we ventured back to the hotel for some down time.

Eventually it was time to eat so we wandered out to find something.  An oddity we noticed is that every place we stopped at for dinner (that wasn’t way outside our price range) was mobbed but nowhere did we see families with children.  In fact, when we stopped to think about it, we have hardly seen any children while in Zürich!  There were a few at the museum today and there was a family at the table next to us at lunch yesterday but otherwise, we have seen hardly any kids!  It was beginning to remind me of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! I was looking for the ugly dude with the lollipops who was luring them away! We eventually found a place that met both our stringent criteria – we could get a table and entrees were less than Fr. 50 – and we had a lovely meal.  There was even one other person under 18 there!  We thought maybe we had misjudged the city and that in fact they did not lock up their kids but then we realized that they were also tourists!  So it remains a mystery why we don’t see any Swiss kids in Zürich restaurants…. (cue Twilight Zone music!)

/san/

[Pedometer: 27,507 or about 13.5 miles but no rain!]

August 8 –

Well my business at the BIS done, the family is on the move again. We breakfasted, packet up and hopped on a train to Zurich. The skies there were just as grey as the one’s in Basel but it was at least dry. We had an interesting time finding a taxi that could hold all 4 of us and the luggage but eventually we found one driven by a nice Croatian man who didn’t really speak much English so he and Frank tried to chat in French. Very amusing!

We got to the hotel but our rooms weren’t ready yet so we abandoned the cases and started to explore Zurich. The lake is very pretty and would have been more so with some sunshine but today it was not to be. We walked down the Bahnhofstraße – the shopping mecca for the brand conscious! It’s more than a kilometer of designer shops and we were happy to just peer into the windows. Of course, the object for the day was the toy stores…. first was Franz Carl Weber where Frank was in toy car heaven but in the end only actually purchased one car.

We grabbed lunch at the Zueghauskeller – a well-known place that serves traditional Swiss food. I had lunch there a few years ago when I was in Zurich for a day and at that time I was amazed to see three businessmen share a bottle of wine and a 3-foot-long sausage! My family was a bit dubious at this claim until today when the family at the table behind us was sharing one about 4 1/2 feet long (I think technically it was 1.5 meters…) The meal gave us enough fuel to wander around the old town a bit and check out the two Münsters: the Fraumünster is the smaller of the two but has beautiful stained glass windows designed by Marc Chagall. The big church, literally called the Großmünster, is just across the river and is incredibly stark compared to other churches we’ve been in – no candles in either place! According to the leaflet I picked up, the Großmünster was the starting point of the Reformation in Switzerland and therefore the reformer Huldrych Zwingli removed whatever gave the church a wordly appearance – including the alter! The result is a very minimalist interior which is clearly devoted to worship only.

The rain began as we left the Großmünster so we headed back to the hotel to pick up some rain gear. Then we ventured back out to find the other big toystore in town: Pastorini Speilzug which has 5 floors of wooden toys! Gillian perused the puppets but decided to wait before buying. The rain was heavier now so wandering around town had lost its appeal. It was time for a typical rainy day activity…. go to the movies! We found a theater nearby showing The Simpson’s Movie in English with German and French subtitles so that’s where we headed. We confirmed that Switzerland is an incredibly expensive place when the bill for 4 movie tickets came to CHF 72!

What made the experience even more interesting was the reaction of the Swiss audience to the movie. The guy down the row from me was rocking back and forth violently with laughter. While I enjoyed the film, I didn’t think it was *that* funny. What I did find funny was the insertion of an intermission about 45 minutes into the movie where we were encouraged (in English!) to go buy ice cream! The guys a few rows in front of us chose to buy beer instead – what a civilized notion – and then 15 minutes later, the stupidity continued!

When the movie ended, it was no longer sprinkling outside; it had progressed to absolute downpour so we got completely soaked on the walk home. We opted for pizza and beer at the restaurant next to the hotel – which was incredibly yummy – and are now trying to figure out how to get all four pairs of shoes to dry by morning!

/san/

[Pedometer: 19,098 steps – or should I say strokes! – or about 9.5 soggy miles.]

August 7 –

I had to work again today (two days in a row…. sacrilege!) but got to focus more on the dissemination issues rather than data compilation and storage issues from yesterday. So while I got up early to “go to the office” the family eventually got up and out for their day in the pouring rain! Yup, our brilliant summer weather from yesterday deserted us completely and we had an amazing thunderstorm last night with some of the loudest thunderclaps I’ve ever heard!

The family made their way to the Natural History Museum where they spent several hours enjoying the exhibits even though all the descriptions were in German. Gillian liked the big hands-on room with lots of problem solving puzzles which Frank wasn’t fond of due to the heat and the interesting odors emanating from some of the occupants! He liked the bird room best (which with the scent of dead birds was apparently an improvement!) Duncan liked the room with the “archaic mammals” – a room dedicated to the evolution of mammals from their historical counterparts as captured by fossils.

After a pit stop at the hotel for fresh batteries, they went in search of lunch and found a nice little place in a side arcade. For the first time, there were portion sizes that were not quite as large as they could (should?) be! They did some shopping and then picked up the theme from yesterday and continued their wandering – this time up to the old town where there were buildings from the 13th century and some they suspected were from even earlier. Afterwards they headed back to meet me since I was done with my day’s work. We wandered around some more to get our daily dose of ice cream – we found a real gelato stand today! And during our wanders we ran into the mom and cute little girl we shared a compartment with on the train on Sunday! It is now official: we can’t go anywhere without running into someone we know!

Then it was off to my friend Gabi’s house for dinner: Cheese fondue! Apparently, the Swiss don’t really eat fondue in the summer (at least not the German speaking ones I’m told!) We enjoyed much wine, cheese, more ice cream, more wine and of course single malt whiskey – of which both Gabi and Frank are fans and collectors. We discussed jazz and blues and other music and eventually needed to make our way home. Tomorrow we have another transition: Zurich.

/san/

[Pedometer: 23,779 or just over 12 miles since we’re using Frank strides again. I probably managed less than 5 miles of that… :-(]

August 6 –

(Today’s title courtesy of Duncan!)  The family set out to explore Basel without me today as I had business to attend to.  I spent the morning doing work in the Fed office at the BIS before having lunch with Gabi and preparing for the afternoon discussion on data management strategies within the Monetary and Economics Department at the BIS.  We covered many topics but there still wasn’t enough time so I’ll have another data session tomorrow after I spend the morning with the web folks discussing dissemination issues.

While I spent several hours chatting with lots of folks on interesting issues, the family decided to cover all of Basel on foot.  They wandered around the old town and did some shopping – looking for Birkenstocks and Swiss watches.  Then they wandered around the Marketplatz and other shopping areas. They had salads for lunch – it was HOT today – and rambled some more. During this wander, they spotted an add for a collector’s toy store out of the city center so it was time to explore some more!  They took the tram to where they thought the shop should be but got a little lost before they finally found it only to discover that it was closed!  It turned out that it wasn’t quite what they wanted anyway so they decided to walk back to the center of town.

While wandering along the banks of the Rhine they noticed two interesting sights:  topless Swiss sunbathers and people swimming in the strong current of the Rhine.  Apparently there are swimming lanes marked but they are difficult to navigate given the strength of the current.   There was more wandering about town and few more tram trips before they wound up at the Munster – which is relatively plain compared to churches we’ve seen this trip. (No candles!)  Not a lot of stained glass either so I didn’t mind missing it today.   They walked some more and scouted out museums to visit tomorrow;  most were closed today.  They enjoyed some Swiss chocolate, stopped by the Tinguely Fountains to take some pictures (they are really cool!) and then there was *more* wandering before heading back to the hotel where I joined them at 6:30.

Since I had been sitting for several hours, I made them walk some more to get dinner and we had another fabulous meal – this time at Gifthütti where Frank had the best steak he’s had in ages and I really enjoyed my curried shrimp and veal (?!). More walking along the river before we got home.  Now the tired folks are tucked quietly into bed.

/san/

[Pedometer: 32, 671 or better than 17 miles since Frank’s steps are longer than mine.  They set a new record and I probably managed about 4 miles today if I’m lucky.  Not enough to burn off even the cream in my curry sauce….]