In our continuing European trip, we left Morette in France, and traveled by train to Zürich (with changes in Lyon and Geneva). The trip was easy and perfectly on time; I love the Swiss train system, and it is convenient that I have a toddler’s command of the three languages for signage and announcements. 

We were the guests of our good friends Pauline and Alex. Pauline is an alumna of the University of Arizona W.A. Franke Honors College (where we met) and Alex, whom she met in Zürich, though he is from the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Because they both work (a concept we have easily forgotten in retirement), they took turns showing us the wonders of the region. 

Our first order of business was to visit the bi-weekly Market Oerlikon — a few minutes’ walk from Pauline and Alex’s house. My photos are few because, well, I was concentrating on what to make for dinner! One night I made a salad with wild asparagus, sweet potato and scallop napoleons with saffron mayonnaise, and a creamy pasta with smoked salmon, chipotle, and scotch. On another evening, Pauline made an incredible Swiss fondue using cheeses Alex picked out from the market.  

After the marketing was done, Alex took us down to the Kunsthaus Zürich, a large and impressive art museum. The museum collection is spectacular but there was one art installation in particular he was excited to share with us: “Turicum Pixelwald” (Pixel Forest Turicum) by Swiss artist Pipelotti Rist. It brings the concept of color as a symbol of life into the present and translates it into a spatially immersive installation with synchronized music. 

The museum also boasts a large collection of some of the finest art in the world. In the wing we visited, one gallery featured works from the Emil Bührle collection, comprising mostly French impressionists and modern works, but also includes masters from the first half of the 19th century with a few 18th century pieces mixed in. These were arranged salon-style with labels in a handheld booklet. Both Mark and I have museum backgrounds, and we found it rather nice to take in the overall effect and individual works, without a feeling of obligation to read labels. The collection is rather controversial as Bührle was an arms dealer in World War II, and little is known about the provenance of the works he collected. The introductory signage was quite overt about this.

We then braved the rain to the nearest tram stop which took us down by the lake to a bar where Pauline caught up with us. The bar felt like an extension of the museum. The Kronenhalle Café and Restaurant is a Zürich institution, known for its warm atmosphere, fine service, traditional cuisine, and — perhaps above all — its collection of early-to-mid 20th century art: Chagall, Miró, Toulouse-Lautrec, Giacometti, Bonnard, Braque, and Kandinsky (to name a few).

The next day — with the weather overcast but without rain,— Alex took us for a country drive north of the city. As we wove back and forth between Switzerland and Germany, we happened across the Rheinau Abbey. This stunning German late gothic-baroque church was on an island (Klosterinsel) in the Rhine between the two countries. Once a small group of other visitors left, we had the silent abbey church and its grounds to ourselves for exploration. It was a Benedictine monastery in Rheinau in the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland, founded in about 778 (and suppressed in 1862).

Then on to the Rheinfall (which were wide, loud, and beautiful) and then to the picturesque riverside town of Stein am Rhein. We wandered the streets for an hour or so, marveling at the building decoration, before heading back to the city for dinner on our our own at LaSalle (restaurant information at the end), a stylish restaurant within a converted industrial building. 

Another day’s outing took us south to Lucerne and into the northern edges of the famed Swiss Alps. In the town of Kriens, we picked up the aerial gondola to the summit of Mount Pilatus overlooking the expansive Lake Lucerne. As we arrived at the top, we were greeted by the unmistakable sound of alpenhorns, which made for a magical start to our explorations of the summit. Later, we also heard some authentic yodeling. The scenery was stunning and we had fun climbing as high as we could to see out over all of southern Switzerland and southward toward the Italian Alps.

Once down from the mountain, we strolled through the waterside streets of Lucerne, including crossing its famous covered bridge. 

The next day, a visit to the Park Seleger Moor — on the southwest side of Lake Zürich — took our breaths away in a very different way than the previous day’s Alpine altitude. Seleger Moor is one of the most important upland moors in the Canton of Zürich. The park was created around a damp area in 1953 by Robert Seleger and it attracts more than 40,000 visitors every year. We meandered for two hours along the winding paths under stall shade trees, among thousands of blossoming rhododendrons, azaleas, tree peonies, and wildflowers in all colors — we could not have been there at a more perfect time. 

On our final day, Pauline took us out onto Lake Zürich for an hour-and-a-half boat cruise up and back, followed by pastries and hot chocolate at Café & Conditorei 1842. This charming café is a great place for some strudel and their delicious hot chocolate, which we enjoyed in a hidden courtyard. As part of the Arbeitskette Foundation, they have a mission to enable and promote the social and economic participation of people with disabilities, working to find opportunities for professional integration. Pretty cool, eh?

And now, the food. Zürich is a great food city — in fact some of the best food we had our entire six-week trip, which is no small claim, as our Swiss sojourn was flanked by time in France and Italy. Here are three recommendations:

Didi’s Frieden Restaurant. Stampfenbachstrasse 32, 8006 Zürich. The restaurant, created by chef Didi Bruna, has a beautiful interior and is renowned for authentic, farm-to-table Swiss cuisine.

LaSalle. Schiffbaustrasse 4, 8005 Zürich. Chef Andreas Medewitz offers a menu of traditional Swiss classics and aromatic Mediterranean cuisine. It is housed in the Schiffbau building, a large, open-concept warehouse. Behind the open dining room is a colorful and inviting bar.

Widder Restaurant. Rennweg 7, 8001 Zürich. Obviously, saving the best for last, this restaurant is one of my top three restaurants for a truly memorable dining experience. (I will share the full menu and photos when I post a recipe I recreated.) Widder offers a prix fixe menu of five, six, or seven courses by Chef Stefan Heilemann (and pastry chef André Siedl). The presentation was exquisite and the wine pairings were perfect. Heilemann has earned the restaurant two Michelin stars.