Zürich

Date: August 31, 2018 – September 4, 2018
Location: Zürich, Switzerland

On the evening of August 31, 2018 Brian and I left Amsterdam to take an overnight train to Zürich, Switzerland. We changed trains in Köln, Germany.

In Köln, we had a few hours before the train left. I had a delicious German meal.

Brian couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have a German beer.

I also went outside of the train station and saw the Cologne Cathedral.

In Zürich, we went to a house-sit we chosen for.

Housesit Overview

When people with pets decide to go on vacation, they need to make arrangements for how their pet(s) and home will be cared for while they are gone. A kennel can be costly and stressful for pets, and worrying about whether anything in your house is going wrong while you are away is an added burden that can take away from your time off.

If friends or family are not available to care for the house and pets, or you don’t want to pay someone to stop by at regular intervals, this is where house sitting comes in. The pets remain in their home environment, and in exchange for watching pets, taking in the daily mail, watering plants, and other chores, the traveling house sitters can get free housing. It’s a win-win for both the travelers and the home owners!

We are members of two house sitting websites, Nomador and TrustedHousitters where ads looking for house-sitters are posted.  If you would like to join TrustedHousitters to post an ad for someone to watch your house, or to look for house-sitting opportunities you can you this referral link to get 20% off a membership.

We were fortunate to see a house sitting ad, and be chosen, to take care of a dog in Zürich during dates that works with our schedule.

Our Zürich Housesit with Heda

Oliver and Cécile warmly welcomed us into their home. They were very thorough in going over all the instructions to care for their adorable French Bulldog, Heda, while they were away.

In Zürich, we saw Fraumünster church.

Right behind Fraumünster is a bridge and on a small hill is Grossmünster church.

Grossmünster church has twin towers and you can see them in many areas of the city.

Charlemagne or Charles the Great is on the side of the southern tower.

From across the Limmat River are some nice views of Grossmünster.

The buildings along the Limmat River are quite nice.

This is Münsterhof square.

On the side of Zürichsee, Lake Zürich, we saw a man playing an alphorn.

September 4, 2018

Zürich is one of the cities that has LimeBike, a California based company. We located a couple bikes close by on the app and road them on a bike path.

The bikes are inexpensive to use at 1 Swiss franc, $1.03 when we were there, for 30 minutes. I wish they came with bike helmets. The nice thing is that when you are done you don’t need to find a set parking area for them. You can leave them anywhere that is out of the road. This is where we left the bikes when I didn’t want to ride with the cars.

We walked up the hill to Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich University where there is a nice view over the city.

Here is Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich’s main building.

I left Brian to go to the Uhrenmuseum Beyer, a clock and watch museum. 

Unfortunately the museum only took cash and I didn’t have any Swiss francs. Since we were leaving the next day I didn’t want to get any francs either so I didn’t go in the museum.  Zürich is the first place we have been that has not widely accepted credit cards. Instead of going to the museum I looked in shop windows.

There are many luxury stores along Bahnhofstrasse.

Another church that can be seen from many locations in Zürich is St Peterskirche.

St Peterskirche has the largest clock face in Europe at just over 28 feet in diameter.

Here is looking out over Zürichsee.

Being in Switzerland I purchased some delicious swiss chocolates.

I went back to the flat to hang out with Heda.

When I was walking around the City Brian met up with his friend Geoff, who was flying through and had over a 10-hour layover in Zürich. They toured along the lake on Lime Bikes.

They located some Lime Bikes and rode along Zürichsee.

After they had a drink by the lake and enjoyed the good weather.

Lastly, before Geoff had to fly out, they met up with one of Brian’s friends (Perry) who attends ETH and some of his friends that work in robotics. They had some tasty beer and pretzels with the locals on the ETH terrace overlooking Zürich during sunset.

And then it was back to Heda!

Zürich has many small, public fountains that you can fill a water bottle up at. We have seen fountains with potable water in other cities in Europe as well – more in Italy than other places.

The main area of Zürich with all of the shops and restaurants is a lot smaller than I expected. There are tons of bike trails around so it is easy to get around the area.