Tuesday 17 June: I got in to Zurich Airport about half an hour late and it was almost deserted - I think everyone was at the France v Italy!? Even so, the plane parked on the apron and we had to get a bus across the tarmac to the terminal. Luckily Jacqueline was there to meet me. Jacqueline's place was great - a little way along the shores of Lake Zurich, only a few minutes by train from the centre of town. It was great to meet her sons when they were about, and like everywhere in Zurich, a stunning view over mountains and lakes is no more than a few steps away.
Wednesday: The sun was finally out on my European trip! After a great breakfast Jacqueline pointed me in the direction of Küsnacht HB railway station and gave me a bunch of information to help me find my way around. I found a bank, and suitably cashed up I headed into the city. Zurich Public Transport has fantastic tickets - quite indecipherable for non-German speakers (fair enough), with bulk, patterns and silver thread to put many banknotes to shame. I went for a wander to get my bearings and found the lakeside football fanzone. I managed to spend 4 euro on a small bottle of Coca Cola, and decided that the fanzone wasn't going to be a place for me to grab any bargains!
Zurich was very picturesque - where in Edinburgh the citizens would walk around with golf clubs, in Zurich they had hiking poles. Also the fountains were brilliant!
I joined up with a city walking tour, then caught a suburban commuter ferry to Zürichhorn before walking back along more fanzone festivities to watch one of the Euro2008 matches on the big screen floating on the edge of Lake Zurich along with a few thousand other fans. I needed a fair bit of help finding the right train home, lots of stations and destinations have virtually the same names (eg Kusnacht and Kussnacht, Uerikon and Uetikon and Oerlikon), but some friendly locals saw my bewildered looks (it also doesn't help when you don't know the German word for 'express' and risk missing your station). The trains themselves were great but it was sometimes a logistical exercise to make it to the right platform in foreign.
Thursday: I had to go to Mount Pilatus since Dermott had recommended it on Getaway. Unfortunately I was suffering from almost debilitating hayfever for much of the day (was it being caught in the rain in Edinburgh? Or adjusting to the altitude or humidity, or perhaps the farmlands around were drying out and getting dusty?) but I still managed to soldier on, from Lucerne through to the cable car up to the Pilatus Kulm, then down by cogwheel railway to the lake cruise. We were worried on the approach to Pilatus that the clouds would be below the summit, but while we were up there the clouds just lifted enough that we could see down to Lucerne and all the neighboring towns and lakes, and quite often we would get a puff of cloud come across that didn't have the oomph to clear the summit first time, making for some quite spectacular effects. I had decided that a lot of things in Zurich were quite expensive, even coffees and lunches, so I ended up just ducking into a handy supermarket every time I felt like a snack and this worked quite well.
With a bit of a snooze on the coach I picked up a bit and met Jacqueline for dinner, after which we made the most of the plentiful evening light and headed across to the rotunda next to the harbour where there is a tradition of free-form DIY swing dancing each week. No matter that there was a huge crowd in the open air bars just across the road! I met up with Ursi and (in between my sneezing and apologising) had a good catch-up.
Friday: After another exceptional breakfast Jacqueline dropped me down at the station and organised with the ticket person a fun little DIY excursion for me. I caught the train to Uetliberg which is only a few kilometres out of town but is up on a mountain. There's a bit of a lookout and a hotel - all pretty spectacular. Then you hike 4 or 5 km along to Felsenegg and catch the cable car back down to the suburbs and get the train home. It was a brilliant day - the weather was perfect and I was really enjoying being on holidays. My camera's screen finally gave up the ghost but I decided that it was still taking photos OK, so I could make do. The path included a 1 to a billion(?) scale model replica of the solar system, the 'Planetenveg', which struck me as being peculiar but interesting all the same. The Sun is about 1-and-a-half metres across and up on a pole, each planet has its own stone plinth; Saturn and Uranus are a maybe 3 and 4 km away and are about the size of billiard balls. I had been set the challenge to write a song about Microwave Background Radiation by Ben from Melbourne when I was in Edinburgh, and this environment provided the perfect backdrop and I pretty much finished it in one hit.
I caught the bus back from the centre of town and Jacqueline had given me instructions to stay on an extra stop; we were having a BBQ at some neighbours'. As I found many times during my trip it was a delight to get to visit the homes of the locals in each place. On this occasion the big screen was set up for the night's soccer - it was a particularly boring game until the last 2 minutes of extra time when each team scored a goal and penalties proved the decider.
Saturday: a couple of Jacqueline's friends were going to climb a mountain, and we joined them. I got the feeling that for many of the locals it wasn't anything more than a bit of a weekend stroll, judging by some advanced ages and the things they took with them (eg novels, the newspaper) but for our little crew it was a good challenge to keep up. Again the weather was idyllic and there was a bunch of gliders overhead riding thermals. The mountain was 2101m and I think we started at around 1280m - we could just start to feel the effects of altitude by the summit. The whole way we were treated to spectacular landscapes and even when we reached the top we could see ridge lines all around that all seemed higher still.
I think it took about 6 hours to get up and back down again; we stopped for a drink near the base and I was ready to just about keel over after the exertions. But, back at Jacqueline's and after a bit of recovery time, we were ready to head out dancing! There are a few other swing dancers I know from Switzerland and I had hoped to see a few of them there but it was a very quiet night as it was only a week before Herrang and apparently lots of people were at a dance camp at Como. Still I managed quite a few dances and it was good fun.
Sunday: Off to Denmark! Jacqueline completed her stellar hosting duties by once more negotiating the picturesque yet very winding roads on the way to the airport. We boarded the plane at the scheduled time... and then it was nearly an hour before we pushed back. I've no idea why, but it seemed that the planes were taking off at half the normal rate. As soon as we were over Germany the weather closed in...
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