This was the 4th day of our Swiss visit and our stay at Interlaken was over. We had planned to fly back home via Zurich itself but while returning to Zurich from Interlaken we decided to take a slightly different route and made a quick stopover at Berne, the capital of Switzerland. As you can see from this trip map on the right we had made a similar stopover at the lake city of Lucerne while going to Interlaken but could not cover much other than roaming around lake Lucerne for a while. We were lucky to get around 4-5 hours to spend at Berne and we decided to make the best use of it.
 |
| A Colorful Street in Berne |
Berne is a medieval city which sits on a peninsula formed by the winding course of the river Aare. The remarkable design coherence of the Berne's old town has earned it a place on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It features 4 miles of arcaded walkways along streets decked out with fountains and clock-towers. There is something very special about Berne's numerous clock towers littered along the walkways. All of them are fitted with very old astronomical clocks with sophisticated features. It is probably from those times that Swiss watches have made their mark all over world. Fountains that once provided the municipal water supply are still found every block or so in the main streets.
 |
| Lake Zurich |
After finishing our flash trip of Berne we headed towards Zurich by a connecting train. Zurich which is the largest city of Switzerland is situated besides Lake Zurich, where the lake flows into the River Limmat , in the north of Switzerland. You can see me standing besides lake Zurich in the picture on the left.
Zürich offers a unique mixture of attractions – over 50 museums and more than 100 art galleries, international fashion labels and the most flamboyant and lively nightlife in Switzerland. Recreational activities range from a visit to the riverside and lakeside bathing areas in the very heart of the city, to a spectacular hike on the Uetliberg mountain.
 |
| A Working clock in a real garden |
We had only 3-4 hours at our disposal before catching our flight back to London so we decided to first have a cruise at Lake Zurich. By the time we had done so many cruises that the excitement of lake cruises was starting to fade out. There are some nice walkways around the lake and you can see me standing around one such area where they have created this artistic real clock ticking in the middle of a beautiful garden.
 |
| Trams in Zurich |
After the lake cruise we just decided to walk around the train station and we were amazed the find the kind of fashion boutiques available on the street. Zürich’s shopping mile has contributed largely to the city's reputation as an El Dorado for shoppers and is a top address for international fashion labels, jewelry and watches. We later found out that we were actually roaming an area called Bahnhofstrasse which has the mile-long street of banks featuring exclusive fashion boutiques, department stores and street cafes invites passers-by to linger. We were a bit surprised to see many posters of our very own Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai's posters endorsing some Swiss watch at a few places in the street. I highly recommend anybody visiting Zurich to roam around this area at least once.
 |
| Alps from the Plane Window |
Finally it was time to catch our easy-jet flight back to London Luton. We were lucky to catch some amazing views of Alps while flying over it. This is the final blog on my Swiss blog series and I leave you now with some amazing pictures of Alps taken from the window of my plane. Please keep on checking this space for my next blog series on Paris, Disneyland and Austria.
 |
| Good Bye Alps |
0 comments:
Post a Comment