On the Move - Weekend in Zurich
Jan. 14th, 2002 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetOur quick weekend hop to Zurich started with a tube ride on Friday
afternoon. The process of flying out of Heathrow is always an exercise in
hurry-up-and-wait--dash up the hill, run for the train, sit for an hour,
dash through the airport, check in, run the security gauntlet, wait for a
couple of hours. We got some food in the terminal--pizza for me, a chicken
& bacon foccaccia sandwich for J. and a Caesar salad split between us--and
then discovered that due to a runway closure earlier in the day, most
flights were running about two hours late. We found seats in the crowded
waiting lounge and settled in, but after only ten minutes, were called to
our gate and took off less than an hour late. It was a fairly clear night
and we got a great view of Paris, with the illuminated Eiffel Tour clearly
visible.
With no luggage to wait for, we breezed through the Zurich airport and
jumped on the train into Zurich center before realizing that our hotel was
actually quite a ways out. It was eleven by then, so rather than sorting
out the trains any further, we just hopped in a cab.
Check-in at the Swisshotel Zurich was easy enough and our room was
reasonably pleasant, although we didn't find the bed very comfortable and
the sheets irritated both our skin--must be the detergent they use. It's a
business hotel, chosen because that's where Linda's conference was, and we
were concerned at first that we'd be too far out of things, but with a train
station just across the street, it was actually quite convenient.
On Saturday we set out to see the town. Our first stop was at the Kunsthaus
Zurich, the main art museum. They had an eclectic collection oddly
scattered around a building that has been added to again and again to create
a strange maze of galleries. One of our discoveries there was the work of
Agosto Giacometti, Alberto's cousin, whose style reminded us of Mucha's
work. Another was Felix Valloton, whose vivid colors and stark lines
appealed to me. We were very amused by a Magritte that was new to both of
us, entitled "The Sixteenth of September" and were disappointed they didn't
have a postcard of it. They also had one of the prettiest Picasso pieces
I've ever seen. Their special exhibit was called "Sade Surrealism" and was
an exploration of the themes of eroticism in surrealist works.
Leaving there, we stopped into the Fraumunster, a church built for the noble
ladies of Zurich around the turn of the last milennium. Its current claim
to fame is a series of stained glass windows designed by Marc Chagall that
we found enchanting. After staring at them for a while, we walked back
across the Limmat River and up the stairs to the Grosmunster, where we saw
some windows designed by Agosto G. that we didn't like nearly as much as
either his paintings or the Chagall windows--too dark and cluttered, like he
didn't really "get" the medium. In the crypt we found a very strange statue
of Charlemagne that used to adorn one of the niches elsewhere in Zurich.
Slipping back out of the church, we wandered through the pedestrian alleys
of the Old Town, looking at antique shops and candy stores and a
"schnappsboutique." We stopped into a coffee shop for a drink and snacked
on a wonderful slice of apple pie with a cinnamon almond crust. At that
point we were facing the dead zone of the touristic day, when all the shops
and sites are closed, but it's not time for dinner yet. So a brief stop
at the hotel, we went to the movies and saw _Ocean's Eleven_. It was
amusing and fun to watch without being particularly notable.
I had been suffering from a nagging, low-level headache all day and during
the two hours in the cinema, it bloomed into one of my Top Five Worst
Headaches of All Time. I thought my head was going to explode--pain so bad
I was nauseated by it. We headed back to the hotel as quickly as possible
and got me pain relievers and a dark room. After about an hour's nap, the
ache had receded to bearable proportions and by the time we'd eaten
dinner--room service, since I wasn't feeling up to going out--I was fine.
Since the last time I had one of these (and the first time in years) was
about 24 hrs. into our Italy trip, my theory is that it is a delayed
reaction to flying, that I'm not working hard enough to repressurize my
inner ear. I hope it's true and knowing this will help me to avoid the pain
in the future, by taking decongestants in a timely fashion.
We were waking up on Sunday morning when Linda called to say she had
arrived, she was not only in the same city with us, but in the very same
building and she was going to sleep. We partook of the hotel's excellent
breakfast buffet (real American style bacon!) and then popped into town and
went to the Helmhaus, an art gallery housed in yet another old church. They
do temporary exhibits of contemporary works. Currently they are showing
photographs from Afghanistan by Faizal Sheik--the most striking image was a
woman in full burkha that brought to mind a hazmat isolation suit--and
something called Wald/Explosionen, which consisted of photographs, video and
an installation depicting forest, explosions and explosions-in-forests.
Jason was very amused by a section title in the catalogue that read "Was ist
Wald? Was ist Explosionen? Was ist Wald/Explosionen?"
After an hour there, we walked back to the train station along the opposite
side of the river and headed back to the hotel to meet Linda. It was so
good to see her! The three of us went back into Zurich (hurray for day
passes!), grabbed a quick lunch--seafood bisque and sandwiches--in the train
station, and set out to find the Stiftung Sammlung E.G. Buehrle. This
private collection, housed in one of the former homes of the collector, was
well worth the ~45 minute walk. In addition to a substantial sampling of
medieval art, Buehrle amassed quite a group of French Impressionist and
post-Impressionist works. One of the best sets was four different Van Gogh
works on one wall, one each from 1884, 1887, 1888 and 1890, illustrating the
wide changes in his style over his relatively short working life.
We stayed until closing time and were glad to just walk down the hill and
hop on the tram back into the center of things. We wandered through the
mostly closed shops of the Old Town, pointing out the coolest ones we'd
found to Linda. It was too cold to enjoy wandering for long, so we went to
Adler's for fondue. We share a fondue bourguinnone (hot oil in which to
dunk various meats and a selection of sauces to season them) and a cheese
fondue that Jason especially enjoyed and washed it all down with some very
nice beer.
Filled and warmed we went back to the hotel and spent a couple of hours in
Linda's room, drinking tea and playing with the toys she'd brought for her
cousins' kids, whom she will visit in Germany after the conference. When
Linda's eyes could no longer be propped open by juicy gossip and discussion
of current events, we left her to sleep and went back to our room to watch
BBC World and CNN until we fell asleep.
This morning we had breakfast with Linda and then she started her conference
while we packed up, checked out, and caught the free shuttle to the airport.
Because of fog in London earlier in the day, our flight was held, but they
boarded us on time in the hopes we might get an earlier slot. No such luck
and we eventually landed about 45 minutes late, at 1pm. Then we had to sit
in the plane while we waited for a bus to come out and fetch us to the
terminal. Usually that's just a matter of a few hundred yards, but this
time we got a real backstage tour of Heathrow, winding through the offices
and baggage handling tunnels for almost ten minutes before finally reaching
Terminal 1. We zoomed through the concourse to the Immigration barrier,
confidently handed over our passports and then became more and more confused
as the official asked me all these questions about wasn't I working in the
UK and hadn't I ever worked and why didn't I have a dependent visa in my
passport. I offered to show it to her and she handed me Jason's passport!
No wonder she was confused! That straightened out we hurried on past
baggage claim and customs and were on the tube by 1:30pm.
afternoon. The process of flying out of Heathrow is always an exercise in
hurry-up-and-wait--dash up the hill, run for the train, sit for an hour,
dash through the airport, check in, run the security gauntlet, wait for a
couple of hours. We got some food in the terminal--pizza for me, a chicken
& bacon foccaccia sandwich for J. and a Caesar salad split between us--and
then discovered that due to a runway closure earlier in the day, most
flights were running about two hours late. We found seats in the crowded
waiting lounge and settled in, but after only ten minutes, were called to
our gate and took off less than an hour late. It was a fairly clear night
and we got a great view of Paris, with the illuminated Eiffel Tour clearly
visible.
With no luggage to wait for, we breezed through the Zurich airport and
jumped on the train into Zurich center before realizing that our hotel was
actually quite a ways out. It was eleven by then, so rather than sorting
out the trains any further, we just hopped in a cab.
Check-in at the Swisshotel Zurich was easy enough and our room was
reasonably pleasant, although we didn't find the bed very comfortable and
the sheets irritated both our skin--must be the detergent they use. It's a
business hotel, chosen because that's where Linda's conference was, and we
were concerned at first that we'd be too far out of things, but with a train
station just across the street, it was actually quite convenient.
On Saturday we set out to see the town. Our first stop was at the Kunsthaus
Zurich, the main art museum. They had an eclectic collection oddly
scattered around a building that has been added to again and again to create
a strange maze of galleries. One of our discoveries there was the work of
Agosto Giacometti, Alberto's cousin, whose style reminded us of Mucha's
work. Another was Felix Valloton, whose vivid colors and stark lines
appealed to me. We were very amused by a Magritte that was new to both of
us, entitled "The Sixteenth of September" and were disappointed they didn't
have a postcard of it. They also had one of the prettiest Picasso pieces
I've ever seen. Their special exhibit was called "Sade Surrealism" and was
an exploration of the themes of eroticism in surrealist works.
Leaving there, we stopped into the Fraumunster, a church built for the noble
ladies of Zurich around the turn of the last milennium. Its current claim
to fame is a series of stained glass windows designed by Marc Chagall that
we found enchanting. After staring at them for a while, we walked back
across the Limmat River and up the stairs to the Grosmunster, where we saw
some windows designed by Agosto G. that we didn't like nearly as much as
either his paintings or the Chagall windows--too dark and cluttered, like he
didn't really "get" the medium. In the crypt we found a very strange statue
of Charlemagne that used to adorn one of the niches elsewhere in Zurich.
Slipping back out of the church, we wandered through the pedestrian alleys
of the Old Town, looking at antique shops and candy stores and a
"schnappsboutique." We stopped into a coffee shop for a drink and snacked
on a wonderful slice of apple pie with a cinnamon almond crust. At that
point we were facing the dead zone of the touristic day, when all the shops
and sites are closed, but it's not time for dinner yet. So a brief stop
at the hotel, we went to the movies and saw _Ocean's Eleven_. It was
amusing and fun to watch without being particularly notable.
I had been suffering from a nagging, low-level headache all day and during
the two hours in the cinema, it bloomed into one of my Top Five Worst
Headaches of All Time. I thought my head was going to explode--pain so bad
I was nauseated by it. We headed back to the hotel as quickly as possible
and got me pain relievers and a dark room. After about an hour's nap, the
ache had receded to bearable proportions and by the time we'd eaten
dinner--room service, since I wasn't feeling up to going out--I was fine.
Since the last time I had one of these (and the first time in years) was
about 24 hrs. into our Italy trip, my theory is that it is a delayed
reaction to flying, that I'm not working hard enough to repressurize my
inner ear. I hope it's true and knowing this will help me to avoid the pain
in the future, by taking decongestants in a timely fashion.
We were waking up on Sunday morning when Linda called to say she had
arrived, she was not only in the same city with us, but in the very same
building and she was going to sleep. We partook of the hotel's excellent
breakfast buffet (real American style bacon!) and then popped into town and
went to the Helmhaus, an art gallery housed in yet another old church. They
do temporary exhibits of contemporary works. Currently they are showing
photographs from Afghanistan by Faizal Sheik--the most striking image was a
woman in full burkha that brought to mind a hazmat isolation suit--and
something called Wald/Explosionen, which consisted of photographs, video and
an installation depicting forest, explosions and explosions-in-forests.
Jason was very amused by a section title in the catalogue that read "Was ist
Wald? Was ist Explosionen? Was ist Wald/Explosionen?"
After an hour there, we walked back to the train station along the opposite
side of the river and headed back to the hotel to meet Linda. It was so
good to see her! The three of us went back into Zurich (hurray for day
passes!), grabbed a quick lunch--seafood bisque and sandwiches--in the train
station, and set out to find the Stiftung Sammlung E.G. Buehrle. This
private collection, housed in one of the former homes of the collector, was
well worth the ~45 minute walk. In addition to a substantial sampling of
medieval art, Buehrle amassed quite a group of French Impressionist and
post-Impressionist works. One of the best sets was four different Van Gogh
works on one wall, one each from 1884, 1887, 1888 and 1890, illustrating the
wide changes in his style over his relatively short working life.
We stayed until closing time and were glad to just walk down the hill and
hop on the tram back into the center of things. We wandered through the
mostly closed shops of the Old Town, pointing out the coolest ones we'd
found to Linda. It was too cold to enjoy wandering for long, so we went to
Adler's for fondue. We share a fondue bourguinnone (hot oil in which to
dunk various meats and a selection of sauces to season them) and a cheese
fondue that Jason especially enjoyed and washed it all down with some very
nice beer.
Filled and warmed we went back to the hotel and spent a couple of hours in
Linda's room, drinking tea and playing with the toys she'd brought for her
cousins' kids, whom she will visit in Germany after the conference. When
Linda's eyes could no longer be propped open by juicy gossip and discussion
of current events, we left her to sleep and went back to our room to watch
BBC World and CNN until we fell asleep.
This morning we had breakfast with Linda and then she started her conference
while we packed up, checked out, and caught the free shuttle to the airport.
Because of fog in London earlier in the day, our flight was held, but they
boarded us on time in the hopes we might get an earlier slot. No such luck
and we eventually landed about 45 minutes late, at 1pm. Then we had to sit
in the plane while we waited for a bus to come out and fetch us to the
terminal. Usually that's just a matter of a few hundred yards, but this
time we got a real backstage tour of Heathrow, winding through the offices
and baggage handling tunnels for almost ten minutes before finally reaching
Terminal 1. We zoomed through the concourse to the Immigration barrier,
confidently handed over our passports and then became more and more confused
as the official asked me all these questions about wasn't I working in the
UK and hadn't I ever worked and why didn't I have a dependent visa in my
passport. I offered to show it to her and she handed me Jason's passport!
No wonder she was confused! That straightened out we hurried on past
baggage claim and customs and were on the tube by 1:30pm.
