Cakes, chocolates and Rostis

This weekend was time for a trip to Zurich. Arriving at the train station, after a ride on a Double-Decker train, and a coffee on board, I'm adapting very quickly to the continental lifestyle I feel, we headed straight round the corner to the Schweizerisches Landmuseum. It was a strange mix of exhibits, starting with a complete natural history beginning in the stone age and encompassing the Romans, followed by military costumes mixed with an exhibit on Swiss humour, that had an amazing amount of E.U. jokes that could have been written by Brits. Then we headed for a walk around Zurich, down the main street, past Tiffany's, Gucci and numerous other designer stores. There was an amazing chocolate shop, decorated extravagantly with flowers, and it looked delicious. After a boat trip on the Limmat lake, an essential in viewing Swiss cities in my view, we visited Springli, a delicatessen, and treated ourselves to cake and a seriously rich Hot Chocolate. There was just time for a walk about the city gardens by the lake, which included a paddle, and a trip to the botanical gardens and back before heading home, alas on a single decker train, having seen my first Swiss goths at the train station.


On Sunday, I began to realise that when they say Switzerland closes on a Sunday, they really mean it! Wanting to try making rosti (and not cheat by buying the packet ones from Migros), we set out to the supermarket. Only problem was that the 3 in our town were all closed. We rode the tram to the end of the line, a place called Pratteln, which we thought might have more open, if it was a bigger place(it wasn't really but that's not important), and lucky the station shop had the potatoes and onions we needed! So shopping complete we headed back and made our rosti. Traditionally you have bacon, cheese and tomato on top, and it's sort of like a Swiss cooked breakfast. It tasted good (but I have no photos so you'll have to take my word for it), and some where even frozen for later in the week. Then I headed off to the local church, which I'd found a couple of days before. I'd prepared how to say the Our Father in German, but it turned out to be an Italian mass (I'm not daft it wasn't Latin), not sure why, and I smiled and nodded my way through most of it pretty effectively.

Writing this as the heavens open, and see some cool lightening bolts, was really hot today so pretty welcome.

Keep tuned, next week's pretty exciting, but don't want to spoil the surprise.



Swizzy