I was going to include Lucerne in this post as well, but figure to leave it out so I can combine it with Mt. Pilatus for the next post. There are so many good pictures for Lucerne, so I don't want to miss any of those to keep this post concise.
This was Day 5 of my trip (yes, after so many posts, it's only day 5. 11 more days to go!) We've crossed 4 countries so far and entering the fifth. Switzerland is a beautiful country, and the average income is one of the highest in Europe. Being so high up there, Swiss people refused to join the European Union (which is probably a good idea knowing how much of a crisis EU is in right now.) They don't use Euro because of this. It gave me a lot of trouble because I had to use my credit for everything. If a place doesn't accept credit card (like those cheap Chinese restaurants) I would've been screwed.
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The island at middle (the one with Swiss flag) is climbable.
You can see the waterfall from top. |
The trip started at
Rhine Fall, one of the largest waterfalls in Europe. If you have been to Niagara Falls, then this is nothing to you. Although they claim that the water volume that goes through this fall is very large, it doesn't look that amazing in real life. Still, since I've never been to Niagara Falls, this will do. Probably because everyone in the group has been to Niagara Falls already, no one wanted to go up to the island with me. They only charge you 7 Euros (you can either use euro or swiss francs here) for going up. To me, it's a no-brainer. I still don't understand why people don't want to spend a little more to enjoy the trip fully.
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The son from the Italian family,
with the Swiss flag. |
The used a boat to take us up there. On that boat, there are two more families besides me. One is from India and the other is from Italy. I talked to the Italian family about their trip. They are not really from a famous city in Italy, so I don't remember the name of the city. However, it's pretty close to the boarder of Italy (north) and they drove all the way here (across Switzerland.) I told them that I was in a group going around Europe. I also told them that Italy is one of our destinations and we will be going to several cities in Italy. The son was the only one whose English is good enough to communicate, so I was talking to him most of the time. For one moment, the conversation went like this:
Me: "we'll be going to Italy in a week."
Son:" Ah, let me guess... Roma, Firenze, Venecia, and Pisa?"
Me:" Wow! You're dead on! We're also going to Vatican City."
Son:" Yea, that's another country, and it's inside Roma. Tourists always go to these places."
Me:" Well, and I'm a tourist."
Son:" Nothing is really fun besides Roma. No point going to other cities."
He reminded me of those times when my friends from Taiwan were asking about San Francisco and LA. All I told them was "nothing is really worth mentioning. It's just SF and LA." I guess the local Italians feel the same way about their cities. They're proud to have such incredible cities that everyone wants to go. At the same time they don't really care about going themselves. To me, LA only has bad traffics and SF only has hobos and hippies (and weed, but that's everywhere.)
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| Rhine Fall from top of the island. |
We then move onto
Zurich, where we stayed for a night. I gotta say, Swiss people, out of all Europeans, are the most chill. We arrived on a Monday afternoon, and this is what Zurich looked like:
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| Chill life at Lake Zurich |
A little background about Zurich. Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and is one of the biggest financial centers in the world. You get to see many banks around here. If this is the only information I had, I would imagine people in Zurich acting like New Yorkers who are always busy and have piss-drunk face all the time. I was wrong, very wrong. Look at the picture once again. This is a Monday afternoon, a little before 5 pm. I would never imagine seeing this. People are just sitting around eating, chatting, and listening to music. Some were even feeding the swans (there are a lot of these. Lucerne has a lot, too.) This place is like the center of the city, where River Limmat meets Lake Zurich. It was very lively, but not the way I imagined. Well, good for them, I guess.
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| A good view of Grossmunster |
Besides the lake and the river, there are several important buildings around this area. The picture on rig
ht shows Grossmünster, or Great Minster. It's a Romanesque style church built in 1100. It is one of the 3 largest churches in Zurich. The other two being Fraumunster (Women's church or Out Lady's Church) and St. Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church.) I did not walk into any of them due to time constrain, but I assume it's a lot similar to all the churches I've seen so far. The view outside was way more attractive than the inside of the church. I'm sure.
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Another good view of Zurich and River Limmat.
The green pointy building is Fraumunster and
the other pointy one is St. Peter's. The bridge on the right
is the Minster Bridge. |
One of the members in the group mentioned that he has seen postal stamps having the same image as the postal stamps. I couldn't find the exact one he showed, but I guess this will do the job.
Okay, I'm sure busy people still exist in Zurich since I've only seen a little bit of this city. We didn't go to the famous shopping district or any of the spots that could look busier. Still, life here seems chill.
Hm......to be honest, that's all I can share with you for this city. Feel free to go online and wiki to learn more about this city. Since I didn't go to many places here, I couldn't really tell you how I felt about this. There's one thing I know though. I'm definitely coming back to Switzerland. This place is so beautiful and so clean. I heard it's one of the countries that don't have many crimes as well. Life here can be peaceful and wonderful. I'll just share one more picture of this place.
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| A closer look of the chill life in Zurich |
Oh, say what? You don't like my posts? Well, you can.....
Next stop: Lucerne, Switzerland.
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