2nd Day in Zurich, Switzerland

Postcard view of Zurich river into the lake.
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We got up, got a day pass for the public transit, and headed for the downtown. We had picked up a tourist map from the hotel reception and it had a self guided walking tour of the city on it. We started at the main train station was walked down the Bahnhofstrasse, which is a huge shopping area and is called the Shopping Mile. We then walked through the Lindenhof, which was a Roman customs post and the highest point in the Old Town. It had a great view of the river, the bridges, and some of the surrounding churches. We walked passed some of these amazing churches like the Augustiner Church, St. Peter's Church, the Fraumuster Church, and the Grossmunster Church. We then headed for the harbor and passed through Paradeplatz, which at one time was a pig market and it now a financial center. Near the harbor at Burkliplatz there was a carnival being setup and there was a great view of Lake Zurich. We waited for the lake cruise boat, since our day passes let us ride it for free. We looked at the boat schedule and it looked like the next boat was in fifteen minutes, so we just sat down and relaxed on the dock. After about twenty minute we checked the schedule again and noticed a small number next to the time and figured out that the boat we waited for only ran in the summer. We ended up waiting another thirty minutes for the next boat, but we weren't in any real hurry so we just relaxed on the dock again. The boat finally arrived and took us to Casino Zurichhorn. There was a big park and a Chinese Garden in the middle. We were pretty hungry, so we ate at one of the resturants with a patio right on the lake. After lunch, we went to the Chinese Garden, which cost $4 Euro each. The garden was a gift from Zurich's sister city, Kunming. It was alot like the Chinese gardens I visited in China, except you could tell this one was built much more recently. It had the a large Chinese main gate, a mountain you could walk through, a zig-zag bridge, an arched bridge, a lake, a round pavilion on an island, a square pavilion, a hexagonal pavilion, a moon gate, bamboo grove, and a water palace. It also had some stepping stones to hop across one of the fingers of the lake. We spent about thirty minutes walking around and just sitting and enjoying the beautiful scenery. We then went back to the dock to catch the next boat back to the main habor. The boat came every thirty minutes, so we didn't have to wait long. The boat took us across the lake to the other side and then back to the main harbor where to first boarded the boat. We then continued on the walking tour through the city. We crossed the large bridge right next to the harbor, which had a great view of the city and most of the big churches that were on a river banks. We then walked through Sechselautenwiese, which was a large grassing area used for festivals. We noticed a cable car on the map that went up to a recreation area with a view of the city, so we decided to check it out. We took a tram over to the cable car and took it up a pretty steep incline to the top of this hill. It had a decent view, but there was alot of construction so we had to walk down the hill a little to get around it for the view. We checked out the recreation area, which had an outdoor ice rink that was obviously closed and a golf driving range. We then took the cable car back down and another tram back to the walk tour. The rest of the tour was through these narrow streets with lots of shops and resturants. When we got back to the train station, we remembered seeing a brouchure for the only Scotish bar in Zurich, so we figure we would go check it out for Beggs. We got some food and a couple of drinks, but it was really smokey, since everyone in Europe smokes, so we didn't stay very long. We then headed back to the hotel, played some Yahtzee, watched some TV, and went to bed since we were both exhausted.

We walked passed some of these amazing churches like the Augustiner Church, St. Peter's Church, the Fraumuster Church, and the Grossmunster Church.