Warming Up to Zurich

August 5-7

We got off to a bumpy start that put me in a sour mood.

I made an old mistake. I booked a British Airways flight through Expedia. That wasn’t the actual mistake, just the beginning.

We got to the terminal a little after one for a 5:20 departure. BA, though, didn’t even open its check-in counter till 3:15.

So we were stuck having a nondescript lunch at one of the few eateries available outside the security gates at Newark. Joanna had a crab cake, and I ate a turkey club of some kind.

Back at British Airways, people had lined up and things were moving slowly. It took us more than half an hour to find we were in the wrong place.

Sure, it’s a British Airways ticket, but see hidden down here that the flight is handled by Aer Lingus. What the fuck?

At least Aer Lingus was in the same terminal. I made a similar mistake years ago and almost missed my plane because I had to wait for the shuttle to take me from Terminal C to B. 

Aer Lingus check-in was much more efficient.

TSA, however, wasn’t.

Some students came up behind us. Can we go through? Our plane leaves for Dublin less than an hour. Which flight?

Same as ours.

I was starting to get nervous. The flights and the pay-in-advance hotel bills were covered by travel insurance—something I rarely bother with—but even so,  damn, I need a Europe fix. We haven’t been there since our trip to France a year ago April. Joanna’s OK, but I’m starting to show withdrawal symptoms.

Everybody got to the gate on time. And like the time Charlemagne stopped at Florence, there was much rejoicing.

The flight was OK, at least as far as the airline could control it. They even served an OK shepherd’s pie for dinner. 

The problem was people traveling with infants and toddlers. Kids seem to be in pain on airplanes. Hell, even at my age, I am not comfortable on an airplane.

I enjoy flying only because it is taking me someplace very else in a few hours. Don’t you love that sense of disorientation?

But the idiot in front of us—the supposed grown-up—sits down and immediately reclines his seat back into my nose. And the asshole keeps getting up and can’t just sit down. He has to plop down and bounce the seatbacks.

We had that nonsense going on for six hours.

I’ve read articles about flight rage. This throwback could be one of the causes.

We got to Dublin early and, as usual to change planes, had to cross most of the airport to make our connection. We had to ride a bus to another terminal to get out of there.

Of course, we couldn’t do that right away. We had to kill an hour or more before the gate for our plane was even posted. 

I drank a bottle of Bulmer’s cider for breakfast. It was about as strong as a Budweiser and isn’t going to be a favorite of mine. There just wasn’t a lot of flavor. Strongbow and Magners are better.

We found our way to the gate. The bouncing fool wasn’t in front of us this time, so we got to Zurich without need for any violence.

We stopped at the rest room on the way to baggage check, and just before we got to the carousel for our flight, Joanna recognized her suitcase on a cart being trucked somewhere. They don’t give you much time in Zurich, so make sure you use the facilities on the plane before it lands.

We took a cab to the H+ Hotel on Badenerstrasse. It’s clean and comfortable enough, although the room is small. 

We hadn’t slept much on either flight, so the first order of business after check-in was a long nap.

Once we were conscious again, we needed exercise, a walk to explore the neighborhood.

The hotel is in a mixed commercial and residential section of town about two miles from the old city. The tram runs down the middle of Badenerstrasse so it’s a short walk to the station and maybe a 10-minute ride to the middle of things.

To my inexpert eye, several buildings may date to the 19th century, or maybe they’re much newer and built to look antique. There are two BMW dealers and a Mini franchise within five minutes of the door, so if the urge to buy a car hits us, we are all set.

There is a pizzeria across the street and not far away a restaurant called Singapore that offers “Asiatic Specialties.” There is also Barkat Cash & Carry, a greengrocer with a tarp covering the front of the store.

We stopped at Aldi, a discount supermarket, for some snacks to keep in the room. For a discount store, it has an amazing variety of wine. Prices are definitely not American. 

They had a Chateauneuf du Pape for about $20. The cheapest bottle back home is $30.

I resisted the urge to buy a bottle of everything, and we left carrying a bag of dried figs and sleeve of digestive biscuits.

It was probably close to seven when we finally got around to having dinner. We walked in the direction toward Central, to another of the mid-price hotels I had considered, the Mercure Hotel Stoller. It’s about a kilometer closer to the old city.

It has a good restaurant that we decided to try for dinner. I had a plate of veal and mushrooms in a tasty gravy served with hash browns. Joanna had salmon with saffron rice garnished with vegetables including leek and zucchini.

It had been a long time since our shepherd’s pie over the Atlantic, so we were eager to eat. The food was so savory, though, that I expect we would have enjoyed it just as much even if we weren’t famished.

I forget the origin of the wines I had with dinner. I think they were Swiss reds. They were very pleasant going down, smooth and not acidic.

Next morning or, more accurately, afternoon we boarded the trolley, which took us to Paradeplatz, a square with an elephant balancing on its trunk in Central Zurich. The plaza is one of the sights on the city map’s walking tour, where it is described as “world-famous financial center on Bahnhofstrasse.”

By this time, I was feeling much better about life in general and Zurich in particular.  

When we got to breakfast a little after 10 a.m. I realized that I hadn’t had any caffeine for almost 48 hours. That was strange because I didn’t have a driving headache, chills, or any other discomfort.

I was just pissed off at the world: Late openings and misdirection from airlines, the Newark work ethic, dimwits in airplanes. 

Then there was another insult. We had gone to a UBS geldautomat at the airport and the screen said the bank was going to soak me 4 percent on the exchange. I had never been charged like that before in Europe. $212 deducted from my account for $202 worth of Swiss francs. What was this?

I had one cup of coffee with breakfast, and my whole outlook changed. An extra ten bucks isn’t going to break the bank. A $60 cab ride from the airport isn’t outrageous. You’ll spend less time in hell when you die because you didn’t get into a fight on the plane.

Back in the room I checked my bank accounts online, as I do every day. The UBS withdrawal was $201 and change, the exact exchange rate for Swiss francs, according to XE.com.

Things are getting better all the time.

Joanna must have heard me. All right, HH.

I must have been really misbehaving, because I could hear the relief in her voice.

The tram ride was very interesting, passing through blocks filled with bars and restaurants worth checking, though we we won’t have time for now. Maybe when we come back.

We left the tram near the elephant. Sprungli, a sweet shop and cafe that rates a mention in Rick Steeves’s Switzerland guide book, was right in front of us when we stepped out of the trolley car. The macarons are supposed to be outstanding.

We followed the city walk on the town map, but in reverse. We needed to go to the Hauptbahnhof, the chief rail station, at the head of Bahnhofstrasse.

We were taking it easy because it has been hot as hell in Europe this summer. It has been hitting the 90s in Switzerland.

On the way we saw a Roman Catholic Church dedicated to St. Augustine.

You could tell this building was much newer than other European churches, but just for curiosity we stepped inside. It was very spare, almost Protestant.

From what I could make out from the plaque by the door, the building dates to the mid-1950s, although the parish is much older.

The sanctuary, though, was worth the visit. The opening of the apse has a crucifixion group near its apex. The crucified Jesus is flanked by the Blessed Virgin on his right and (I guess) St. John the Evangelist on his left. It may signify “Behold thy mother.”

It’s a modern treatment, roughly formed figures cast in perhaps bronze. The figures are lit from the front to cast shadows on the wall behind the altar. 

The apse is not round, but instead has the footprint of half a hexagon: a flat back wall meeting two raked, flat side walls. The geometry turns the shadow of the crucifix into an embrace.

There’s a striking prayer in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer that says, “You spread out your arms on the hard wood of the cross that the whole world might come within your loving embrace.”

This was a visual representation of the same idea. I’ve not seen anything quite like it before, and much of the beauty of it is its simplicity.

The street by the church led us to a small square with a fountain for drinking water. They seem to dot the old city, surmounted by soldiers and saints and beasts and nymphs.

Another fountain a block away was in a plaza near James Joyce Corner. The house dates maybe to the late 14th century. It faces another building that houses the James Joyce Foundation and its library.

Joyce came to Zurich in the 1930s and died here.

We visited the foundation just as a meeting was breaking up. We met a man with bushy white hair to whom everyone else was deferring and asked if Joyce had lived in the house. 

He said no. Joyce had lived near the lake for a while and then “in the hills.”

The corner is named because the library is there.

We came to the rail station and went in for something to drink. The bar had no ginger ale, but did have a bottle of carbonated green tea with a strong dose of ginger that worked just as well. 

As dry as I was, beer was out of the question. It would go straight to my head and I’d forget how to get home.

I had the green tea and split a bottle of mineral water with Joanna, who as usual seemed to be just fine.

Workman were hanging a colorful, cartoonish figure of a woman near the ceiling inside the station. It may have been part of the Culture of Tolerance festival on Saturday, the 11th. The event is highlighted by a parade that has literally filled the streets in years past.

Outside, I took Rick Steeves’s advice and paused to look at a very Swiss icon, a monument to the triumph of industry.

The great arch of the Hauptbahnhof frames a monumental statuary group, all appropriately crossed by catenary wires—a grand salute from the land of banks, watches, and precision machinery. (Also of chocolate and cheese, but that’s OK, they make good exports too.)

We walked back much the way we had come, enjoying the narrow medieval streets of the old town, the curious luxury goods in the shop windows.

We stopped at a Catalan restaurant for dinner. We found it in a plaza just uphill from James Joyce Corner.

We split two dishes. One was thinly sliced octopus, bits about the size of coins, done in olive oil and sweet paprika. The other was a huge pork chop.

We had that with a couple of very good Riojas. That’s redundant. All Riojas I’ve had have been good. 

We also visited the big cathedral across the river. We wandered through small side streets till we came to the river a short way above the bridge that leads to the cathedral. 

From the bridge Joanna got the photo of the day. It’s a 12th century rendering of Charlemagne seated on his throne with a sword across his knees and a golden crown on, in his niche in the cathedral bell tower.

Sprungli was closed when we came back to the trolley line. So we took the tram back to the hotel.

We stopped at the pizzeria across from the hotel, where I had a glass of an OK Valpolicella while Joanna had pistachio gelato in a sugar cone, one of her favorite treats. 

I had a few more glasses of Merlot at the hotel bar, after the bartender tried to palm off another (can’t remember what) that was spoiled. It had sat in the open bottle too long and tasted like flat beer, almost carbonated.

This doesn’t quite bring us up to date, but it’s already too long. We’re enjoying Switzerland even more than we expected. The wine is good and the food is better. The sights are surprising.

We’re in Luzern now waiting for the rain to quit before we head out to dinner.

Be well, all, and don’t let the dimwits get you down. After all, if they’re bugging you on the plane, you’re off to somewhere else. 

Harry

August 9

I can sympathize with your travel troubles. I hate flying for all the reasons you describe. But what's the alternative?

Enjoy Lucerne. My parents rented a furnished apartment there for 24 years after they left Manhattan. They used the city as a base to travel throughout Europe.

Peter