Zurich

This past weekend Mr X and I made our way down to Switzerland. He wanted me to see Zurich because I hadn't previously and I wanted him to see Lucerne because he hadn't yet. So Friday we got to Zurich around 3:30. It takes between 5 and 6 hours to get there depending on how fast you drive on the autobahn.

Our standing rule is that any hotel we stay in has to be less than $100 per night. It gets a bit harder to do that as the dollar continues it's sad but steady drop against the euro. *sigh* So in order to remain within budget we pretty much stayed in the crack whore district of Zurich. The hotel had a bar on the ground floor but the rooms, though very sparse, were clean and practical. There were probably about 5 or so exotic clubs within a one block radius of our hotel...In fact, just down the street they were having a special showing of "One Night in Paris". I saw more prostitutes in one evening walking back to our hotel than I can count. I heard quite a few as well - arguing, screeching about something or other, etc. It was very interesting. Luckily I was so tired that I slept through the majority of it.

But that all probably makes Zurich sound awful. It isn't. It's actually a very beautiful city and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Mr X and I walked around for hours and hours. I found the most decadent and incredible chocolate shop to which I have ever been in my life and ate the most delicious piece of chocolate I have ever been lucky enough to taste. It is called Florentine Chocolate. It has a thick but not too sweet creamy milk chocolate bottom layer with slivered almonds in a kind of almond brittle layer on the top. Even Mr X, who is a dark chocolate fanatic, agreed that it was the best chocolate he has ever had.

The fact that Zurich is a banking mecca definitely shows. There are banks after banks scattered all over the place - mixed in which the chocolate shops and the tourist shops and the high end clothing stores.

Here are some pictures from Zurich:

This is the Limmat River which runs through Zurich.

A view of the older area of the city.

Mr X walking through the narrow winding streets.

This old style Citroen was so beautiful we had to take a picture. We saw a few of these here.

These little fountain things are all over the place. Mr X says they are like water fountains and you can drink from them. I'm not sure about that as I never saw a soul drinking from them but I did it anyway. Maybe it's just too cold and everybody is drinking espressos right now or something.

There are swans everywhere here. I probably have 20 or so pictures of them now. I kept trying to take a picture of this guy but every time I tried he kept flashing his rear at me. He's obviously proud of his backside so I decided to do him a favor and help him show it off to the world.