Mapping the path

Around the Rhine

Day 2: Zürich

My original plan for our day in Zürich was to start with a visit to the Swiss National Museum, an excellent collection of Swiss artifacts and handicrafts not far from our hotel. We would then stroll through the city’s pedestrian streets on both sides of the river, passing several landmark churches before seeing the Kunsthaus Zürich, an art museum with major European works from the past 500 years.

My wife’s chief ambition was shopping. All of that other stuff was good, too, of course. But make no mistake: There would be shopping.

However, none of it really turned out the way we imagined. Exhausted from jet lag and a rough night in our weird room, we didn’t get out the door until 11:30am. We could perhaps visit one of the two museums, but why spend precious time indoors on your one day in the city?

And it was Monday, when most stores in Zürich are closed. Aside from convenience stores, the only shops open are in a mall called Shopville, located under the train station. We headed in that direction, crossing the pedestrian Mühlesteg bridge, the city’s “love lock bridge.’

Love lock bridges are everywhere these days — in Paris, in Rome, in Brooklyn. In China and Slovenia. Seoul has artificial Christmas trees dressed with locks. Moscow has a lock tree in the middle of a bridge. Lovers typically attach locks to the bridge, often stamped with their names and the date. While it has become a bit of a fad, it is still a charming expression, and the variety of lock types and colors makes these bridges something of a communal public art installation.

We continued on to the station, grabbed a quick coffee, then browsed the shops in the mall. Of particular note was a chocolate shop displaying clipboard-sized slabs of chocolaty goodness in the front window. After that, the rest of the mall was frankly a blur.

We left the station in search of lunch, starting down Bahnofstrasse, a wide boulevard with trams and higher-end shops, all of them closed for the day. Bahnhofstrasse is one of the most expensive streets in the world for retail property. This is due in part to the fact that Zürich is one of the most important financial centers in the world, second in Europe only to London. It is the economic engine of Switzerland and consistently ranks high in quality-of-life surveys. Everyone we met, at least, seemed relaxed and pleasant, enjoying the sunny autumn afternoon.

We turned to walk along the river, then climbed the cobblestone streets in Zürich’s medieval section to see St. Peter, one of four major Protestant churches in a city that served as the heart of the Reformation in Switzerland. There have been churches on this site since the 8th or 9th century, and those churches were in turn built on top of a Roman temple to Jupiter. The current incarnation is a mix of Romanesque and Gothic architecture from construction projects in the 11th, 13th, and 15th centuries.

St. Peter features the largest church clock face in the world, displayed on all four sides of the church tower. For centuries, it marked official local time in Zürich, because the 28.5-foot clock could be seen so prominently throughout the city. The tower itself is actually owned by the city of Zürich and was once used as a key lookout post in firefighting efforts.

We resumed our quest for lunch and found a nice Italian place called Santa Lucia. I ordered pizza and a prosciutto appetizer that can only be described as “far too much prosciutto.” I love prosciutto. I have eaten a great deal of prosciutto. In Italy, I can remember having prosciutto almost every morning, and loving it. But this particular plate represented more prosciutto than a person who cares about enjoying the rest of the day should consume.

After lunch, we backtracked past St. Peter to Lindenhof, a small hill overlooking the river that was once the site of a Roman castle and is now a city park. It was carpeted in fallen autumn leaves from a patch of linden trees clustered on the hill. Groups of locals had gathered there to play pétanque — a game similar to bocce where you toss the ball, rather than bowl it.

As I looked out across the river from the hilltop, I heard what sounded like a marching band playing somewhere in Altstadt. I had heard faint refrains earlier at the love lock bridge and wondered what sort of celebration was underway. The music was much louder now, carrying clearly up to Lindenhof. It was definitely a band of some kind, perhaps playing a traditional tune for some special occasion, a uniquely Swiss melody that… wait, is that Donna Summer?

Indeed, they were playing “She Works Hard for the Money,” with all of the funk and energy of a college football halftime show. As we made our way back down to the river and near the main police station, the band launched into “They Don’t Care About Us” by Michael Jackson. While skilled and lively, it did not exactly carrying a feeling of Swiss authenticity.

But the music was in fact part of the Swiss tradition of Fasnacht, a carnival that takes place throughout the country in February or March, just before Lent. The celebration may have pre-Christian origins, to mark the end of winter or to drive away evil demons. During Fasnacht, city guilds form brass bands dressed in wild costumes and makeup, playing music for the public. In cities such as Zürich, a preview of the festival takes place on November 11, starting at exactly 11:11 a.m. This is what we had stumbled upon.

There were perhaps two dozen bands playing throughout the city, and we began to encounter them at every turn – lugging big drums, blowing on trombones, tubas, trumpets, and saxophones, each guild wearing elaborate matching costumes that struck a stylistic middle ground between “mystical guardian of the forest” and “Cirque du Soleil fever dream.”

We continued our walk along the river toward two more important churches in Zürich: Grossmünster and Fraumünster. They flank each side of the Limmat and are connected by the aptly named Münsterbrücke (“cathedral bridge”). Both were originally monasteries and share a certain lineage: Grossmünster was completed in 1220 on the site of an earlier church that, according to legend, was commissioned by Charlemagne; Fraumünster was founded in 853 by Charlemagne’s grandson, Louis the German.

Grossmünster’s place in history was cemented in 1519, when Huldrych Zwingli began his tenure as pastor of the church. It was a little more than a year after Martin Luther published his 95 Theses (or Disputation on the Power of Indulgences), sparking the Reformation in nearby Germany. A student of Renaissance humanism and influenced by the writings of Erasmus (the “Prince of Humanism”), Zwingli quickly became the de facto leader of the Swiss Reformation. He rejected the veneration of saints, the damnation of unbaptized children, and the notion of tithing as a divine institution. He called out church officials for their corruption and monks for their laziness and material desires. When a representative of the diocese of Constance arrived in Zürich to sell indulgences to raise money for the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Zwingli worked with the Zürich City Council to refuse his entry into the city, believing the people would be giving away their money under false pretenses.

Zwingli and his fellow reformers pressed on, calling for an end of fasting during Lent, removing statuary and other decorations from the church, and ending music and singing during services. These positions caused some controversy, but in formal disputations attended by hundreds of clergy from the region, the Zürich City Council consistency sided with Zwingli. And not without risk. While the Reformation had the support of other Swiss cantons, several resisted. By 1529, the Protestant states teetered on the edge of war with the Catholic adherents. Zürich advocated for attack, with Zwingli as one of the leading voices for aggression, but allied cantons agreed merely to implement a food blockade.

The tables turned quickly when the Catholic states staged a surprise attack in October 1531, meeting an unorganized Zürich army half its size, and defeating it in under an hour. Among Zürich’s 500 casualties: Huldrych Zwingli.

The Protestants suffered another loss shortly after and proposed a peace treaty in less than a month. Under the terms, a few strategic locations were forced to return to Catholicism, but most territories that had converted were allowed to remain Protestant. In effect, this brief war of fierce religious beliefs resulted in a rare expression of religious tolerance at the time, establishing Switzerland as one of the few nations with two official coexisting religions.

At the very edge of the Limmat, next to Grossmünster, is little Wasserkirche. Behind its apse is a monument to the Reformation leader — a statue of Zwingli with a Bible clutched to his chest in his right hand, a long sword defiantly planted in front of him with a firm left hand.

Across the bridge, Fraumünster was founded as a Benedictine convent for aristocratic women. But its most famous aspect is more recent: five stained glass windows designed by Marc Chagall in 1970. The artworks are shaped like emery boards, tall and thin, adorned with scenes from the Bible — The Prophets, Jacob, Christ, Zion, and Law — in different dominant colors.

We wandered into Münsterhof, a large plaza on the north side of Fraumünster. Renovated in 2016, the stone-pavement plaza has a modern fountain at one end that swoops like a playground slide toward a large saucer of water. Attached to one side is a smaller spout serving as a public drinking fountain.

We walked a bit further along the Limmat to the mouth of the river, where it opens up onto Lake Zürich, a 25-mile-long finger of water gesturing toward its source in the Alps. Crowds gathered along the lakeside promenade in front of the 19th century opera house, enjoying the sun. A bevy of the city’s famous swans sidled up to anyone tossing food in the water — an ordinary scene if the birds happened to be seagulls, but undeniably beautiful with so many of these graceful creatures in one place.

We headed back toward the hotel on Limmatquai, along the east side of the river, then turned back up into Altstadt. The Fasnacht bands seemed to be everywhere now, performing their upbeat tunes in the street and in restaurants, moving from one venue to the next, taking a break next to their instruments in clusters of matching costumes.

I left Marianne in the room and walked over to the train station to purchase tickets for our trip to Basel the next morning. And here, too, a band was playing. This bunch wore purple-orange overcoats that seemed designed to complement one of Zurich’s best-known pieces of public art, the “Guardian Angel,” floating just behind them in the large station hall. Created in 1997 by French-American painter and sculptor Niki de St. Phaille to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Swiss railway system, the angel is one of a series of monumental sculptures called Nanas – whimsical, colorful, and wild – designed by the artist to reflect the changing roles of women in society. It depicts a large, faceless, purple woman with golden wings, wearing what looks like an old-fashioned swimming costume adorned with bright colors and symbols. At 36 feet tall and weighing 2,600 lbs., it casts a real presence in the station and is meant to provide protection for travelers heading to their trains.

The sun had just set as I left the station. I stopped to admire the view down the Limmat toward the bridges and churches we had visited, now glowing with warm light, and the backdrop of rising moon and wispy clouds scribbled across the darkening sky.

We went back to the Bonnie Prince Pub for a drink, then walked through Altstadt to have dinner at the Hotel Adler. There we indulged in our second cheese fondue in two nights — this one featuring four cheeses from the canton of Vaud — plus an appetizer called Capuns Gratin: traditional dumplings with cured meat, wrapped in chard leaves and finished in a cheese sauce.

Between two fondues, pizza for lunch, and this cheesy appetizer, I left Hotel Adler a gratin glutton, with a rich blend of fine Swiss cheeses coursing through my veins. The bands were still out, but they too moved slowly, with heavy footsteps and smeared makeup, exhausted after a long day of performing. They continued to play, but loosely, in groups of two or three, the tunes trailing off with late-night melancholy, like the musical accompaniment to a drunk turned out after last call.

We made our way back to the river one last time and found a monochrome scene: illuminated monuments under a black sky, white lights streaming from the riverbanks, glittering on the inky water. After a day full of boisterous sound and energy, Zurich had finally fallen into stately tranquility.

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