Apr 17th, 2012 at 10:00AM: On my second day in Zurich, named the world's most expensive city by The Economist, I found myself sitting at an outdoor table, high above the city, savoring a splendid view of the altstadt and a tasty $3 mug of Swiss beer, while my young sons shared an ice cream cone in a moment of rare culinary cooperation.
We'd just returned from visiting James Joyce's grave, which is adjacent to the zoo ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Zurich posts
Zurich On A Dime - Budget Travel Tips for the World's Most Expensive City
Apr 17th, 2012 at 10:00AM: On my second day in Zurich, named the world's most expensive city by The Economist, I found myself sitting at an outdoor table, high above the city, savoring a splendid view of the altstadt and a tasty $3 mug of Swiss beer, while my young sons shared an ice cream cone in a moment of rare culinary cooperation.
We'd just returned from visiting James Joyce's grave, which is adjacent to the zoo ...Welcome To Zurich, Home Of The $12 Big Mac Meal
Apr 16th, 2012 at 12:00PM: There are no Dollar Stores in Zurich. But if there were, they'd probably offer single sticks of gum, paper clips or kernels of popcorn. In February, Zurich assumed the top spot in The Economist's annual list of the world's most expensive cities, knocking Tokyo off its perch, largely due to the strength of the Swiss Franc.
I'm a frugal traveler – the kind of person who prides himself on ...EuroCheapo launches budget travel guides for Switzerland
Feb 9th, 2012 at 2:00PM: While Switzerland is not usually thought of as a budget-friendly destination, there are actually many worthwhile hotels, sights, and restaurants that won't cost you a fortune. To help travelers navigate their way around this usually costly country, EuroCheapo has launched budget travel guides for the cities of Zurich and Geneva, marking their first Swiss guides on the site. These guides will not ...Serial public art around the world
Oct 17th, 2011 at 4:30PM:
Public art exhibitions featuring a common sculpture that is multiplied and then embellished by various artists have been popping up in cities worldwide since 1998. Artistic director Walter Knapp first came up with the idea and convinced artists to dot Zurich, Switzerland with a collection of artfully-decorated lions. Within a year, Chicago businessman Peter Hanig had taken the idea and ran ...Zurich to vote on suicide tourism
May 15th, 2011 at 10:00AM: Zurich is set to vote on whether to continue allowing foreigners to seek assisted suicide in the city.
Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, but the public has become increasingly concerned about the number of people coming to their country with the intention of killing themselves.
Two proposals are on the table: one to ban assisted suicide for everyone, the other to limit it to city ...Ecotourism's next evolution: Rent a cow in Switzerland
Sep 10th, 2010 at 10:30AM: Need to get away from it all? How about a month or season on a picturesque Swiss farm? Thanks to to enterprising Swiss farmers, professionals can now contribute to the local economy and "participate physically in the life of a medium-size mountain farm and to acquire at a preferential price genuine goods produced on the estate."
Sure... but what does that mean? According to bmi Voyager, the ...Daily Pampering: Soulful serenading in the Swiss Alps
Jun 25th, 2010 at 4:00PM: What's more romantic than a hot summer evening and the smooth sounds of Foreigner? (Cue the high school flashbacks) Outdoor music fans (and children of the 1980s and 1990s) prepare to flock to the Swiss Alps for the "Live at Sunset" concert.
If your summer travels involves a trip to Europe, you might want to stopover in Zurich for this music event.
Nestled amongst the Swiss Alps and Lake ...The mystifying trail up the Uetliberg
Jun 24th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
It was a ludicrously foggy day when I rode the train up the Uetliberg and embarked on the trail to Uto Kulm. The Uetliberg is a Swiss mountain known as the "Top of Zürich," crowned with a 236 foot tower which you can climb for panoramic views of Zürich and beyond -- unless it's half as foggy as the day I was there.
Uto Kulm, pictured hazily below, is a hotel and restaurant adjacent ...The top 50 cities for quality of life
May 29th, 2010 at 1:30PM: If you don't live in Vienna, you might consider moving there.
A new survey lists the top 50 cities for quality of life and Vienna comes out as number one. The survey, conducted by Mercer, a human resources consultancy firm, looked at criteria such as infrastructure, economy, housing, recreation, personal and press freedom, and education. Vienna certainly scores high in all that, plus it has ...Swiss International Air Lines shows their flower power
May 28th, 2010 at 2:00PM:
In celebration of their new flights from Zürich to San Francisco and back, Swiss International Air Lines has decided to wear some flowers in their air (sorry for that pun).
The new nonstop service commences on June 2, and the A340 which will be making the inaugural trip (originating in Zürich) has been painted with a colorful floral design, as well as the words "San Francisco."
...Daily Pampering: Learn to cook "wegetarian" in Switzerland
May 25th, 2010 at 4:00PM:
You don't have to be a vegetarian to like vegetarian food. Many of us are vegetarians one day and want a cheeseburger the next. That's okay.
Hiltl, pronounced HILL-tuhl, is a 112-year-old institution of a vegetarian restaurant and club in Zürich. They call such eaters "flexetarians" (and they call vegetarians "wegetarians," which is delightful). It's nice to see a little flexibility from ...Daily Pampering: Browse the fabrics of next year's runways in Zürich
May 11th, 2010 at 4:00PM:
Tucked away behind a garden near the Langstrasse area of Zürich (a street of many cultures and even more sex shops), there is a boutique called Fabric Frontline. There, they curate and design some of the finest fabrics in the world.
When you walk in, the boutique is a rainbow of color. Any "I don't want to go to a fabric store, are you out of your mind?" misgivings will be immediately ...Daily Pampering: Detox at The Dolder Grand
Apr 16th, 2010 at 4:30PM: This Switzerland retreat knows you've had a rough winter. All those hot totties by the fireplace skewed your usual caloric intake, and the cold winter winds wreaked havoc on your skin. No worries, the healing process is about to begin.
Zurich's Dolder Grand is offering "Detox" and "Retreat" packages with 30% savings to encourage health and wellness this spring. Whether you're in need of a detox ...Go easy on the pedal in St Gallen
Jan 8th, 2010 at 12:00PM: Imagine you're behind the wheel of a red Ferrari Testarossa. You have nothing but open road in front of you in St Gallen, Switzerland. You're rich. You're in Europe. Maybe you've got a hottie riding shotgun and whispering incredibly absurd things in your ear. It's impossible to believe you wouldn't push the pedal to the floor and send your life (and hers) into overdrive. This thrill wouldn't come ...Zurich through the wide angle lens
Sep 2nd, 2009 at 2:00PM: One of the most entertaining instruments in the photographer's toolbox is the wide angle lens, a massive creature full of glass, angles and depth. Contrary to traditional optics, wide angle lenses broaden the field of view available to the camera, resulting in massive, sprawling images from one single shot. It's also got the effect of stretching anything at the periphery of the image, so often it ...Age old question of chicken or beef ends up in Court of Appeals
Mar 7th, 2009 at 3:00PM: Chicken or beef? It's the question almost everyone on an International flight will end up hearing at one point (unless of course you are flying up front, where you'll probably get more choices). Millions of people answer this question every year, and are presented with a meal that is somehow meant to represent their choice. On an American Airlines flight from Zurich to New York several years ...Four masterpieces worth $163 million stolen in Zurich
Feb 12th, 2008 at 8:00AM: If you've ever been to Zurich, Switzerland you may have made a visit to the Emile Bürhle Foundation, whose collection is considered to be the biggest privately owned collection of French impressionists worldwide. On Sunday three thieves made that same visit and took off with four important paintings by van Gogh, Degas, Monet and Cézanne. Their total value is estimated at $163 million, ...The World's Most Expensive Cities
Jun 18th, 2007 at 11:30AM: Mercer, a human resource consulting company, has compiled a list of the most expensive cities in the world based on a cost of living survey which "measures the comparative cost of over 200 items" in each city. Two years in a row Moscow has topped the list, followed by London, Seoul, and Tokyo. Here's the top 10:
Moscow
London
Seoul
Tokyo
Hong Kong
Copenhagen
Geneva
Osaka
...The World's Longest Tunnels
Jun 18th, 2007 at 7:00AM: The Gotthard Base Tunnel (map), a railway tunnel in Switzerland, isn't complete yet, but in 2015 -- after 22 years of construction -- it will be the longest transportation tunnel in the world, running 35 miles through the Swiss Alps. It will eventually cut the travel time between Zürich and Milan from 3.5 hours to 2.5. Four tunnel boring machines are working the job: "2 southbound from Amsteg ...
