🇨🇭Zurich: The Return

Zurich

Our last 2 nights were spent in Zurich the financial hub of Switzerland. Our enormous large one bedroom apartment was about a 10 minute ride by tram out of the city. Our accommodation had beautiful views over Lake Zürich. At night it was easy to see how vast the lake was as the housing lights twinkled far along the shoreline.

All four of our one bedroom apartments here in Switzerland have been extremely large. They consisted of the same design having large glass windows, balconies, beautiful timber floors, extremely large dining rooms and lounge rooms. The size of the living and dining is what you would expect to see in a 4 bedroom house at home. At home when you scale down the amount of bedrooms you also lose living space. Doesn’t seem to be the case here. You can easily fit 2 to 3 lounges in these lounge rooms.   The other common theme is the interior. This apartment once again is decorated using art work, mirrors, dim lamps and vintage showcase pieces.

We took an hour train ride out to view Rhine Falls. Not far from the station you could hear the power of the water as it came thundering with such force, plundering down over the rocks. We watched the birds wrestle against the flowing water as they searched for food. Many large schools of fish huddled together in still calmer waters below the falls. In winter the falls run at half capacity. It was a chilly bleak day so we only stayed an hour.

We were happy to jump aboard a warm train back to Zürich. All up over the last 9 days in Switzerland our train travel has cost $900-00. Rob has saved us money by first purchasing the Swiss Half Fare Passes and also by booking our trains ahead of time to get the cheapest second class ticket. No first class train travel for us!

We spent the afternoon checking out the sites in the old town of Zürich. The Fraumünster church was closed due to a movie shoot!

By far my favourite spot in Zurich was ‘Hiltl’. This the oldest vegetarian restaurant as listed in the Guinness Book of records. Established in 1898 and passed down through four generations of family. It is well known for its amazing Indian vegetarian dishes. I was overwhelmed by choice as Hiltl service a vegetarian buffet to die for. With around a 100 delicious dishes to choose from my cheeks were flushing. But there is a catch!! Make sure your eyes are not too big for your belly as once you have filled your plate you take it to get weighed which cost CHF 4.50 per hundred grams which is around $6 per 100 grams of delicious Indian food. One bonus is you can have 3 free papadums each with your meal. Rob and I carefully filled our plates with as many different Indian curries, samosas, spring rolls, chick pea delights and frittered delights and then shared it all! I was so stuffed on the excitement of knowing I was totally accepted here for loving vegetarian food.

Hiltl is more than a restaurant. It seats around 100 people and has an array of seating options from formal to relaxed lounge seating to window seats and an outdoor area. It’s interior is elegant with huge hanging lights and a glamorous bar. It was late afternoon and crowded with locals. As night falls it turns into a stylish night club. Definitely a true gem not to be missed as it is truly the best Indian I have ever tasted. You can also do take away from the buffet. We will be buying the Hiltl international cook book when we return home. I think they have published four cook books, two in English. They also have a cooking academy. We found out that Hiltl’s has opened up a similar concept restaurant in England called Tibits. A must do when we touch down in England. This was a great way to celebrate the end of our journey together in Switzerland.