Country 3: Zurich, Switzerland

5 Days On The Road ~ Location: Zurich, Switzerland ~ Transportation: Bus

On Friday 2nd March we arrived in Zurich on a Flixbus coach from Luxembourg at 2:00 in the morning. The bus was right on time, and almost full when we boarded it. Many passengers were sound asleep across two seats so it took us some back and forward to find a spot. We were contemplating sitting apart but a lovely guy gave up his seat so we could be together. The world is full of wonderful people. I managed to sleep quite well (for a bus journey), and I woke up at sunrise.

When we arrived in Zurich everything went wrong. I have to start by saying that Switzerland is not included in the "free roaming" policy of most phone providers, including GiffGaff (the brand we use). So we searched how to reach our Couchsurfer house, using the WiFi on the bus before we got off and entered the main station to buy our daily ticket and then we got confused because the GPS was telling us to board something that seemed like a bus, but we followed directions for what turned out to be a train platform with the same number. We got lost 4 more times, walking back and forward! Every time we seemed to go in the right direction the little arrow on Google Maps went crazy and sent us another way.

After much stress and nerve racking frustration we understood we had to board a tram which was all the way on the other side of the station. From that point forward things started going better.

We arrived at our host's house, he lives in a lovely wooden apartment in a very quiet and friendly neighborhood where everything looked picture perfect and very Swiss. There was snow everywhere and such a lovely atmosphere. He has a beautiful collection of Australian birds which happily live in a cage that takes up the whole front window (so they can look outside) and in summer they move in the garden in a fantastic penthouse he built for them. He explained to us all about their lifestyle and habits over a cup of coffee. We had breakfast and a great chat about our lives, our plans for the future, and he told us about his fascination for Iran and all the trips he did on board of his Harley Davidson.

Here you can watch the video about our time in Zurich:

Our itinerary included:

~ Zurich HB

~ Polyterasse

~ Grossmunster

~ Burkliplatz

~ Quaianlagen

~ Zurich Stadelhofen

We didn't have a plan of what we wanted to see in town, so we just took a tram to the center and wandered around. We crossed the old part of the city to the river and the beautiful lake with all the birds fighting for bread. And while we were admiring the Opera House it started to snow so we rushed inside a bookstore. Even without a plan we had a blast, because the city is so beautiful. I thought of Zurich as a modern city and instead it had so much character and charm. Once it started snowing bad we just hopped on a different tram and ate our packed lunch while looking outside the windows.

Best Moment

Best moment by far was watching Deadpool in the home theater Juerg built in his living room. He has a motor that controls a custom made cinema screen that appears and disappears from the ceiling, the whole room is soundproof and black just like a cinema, and of course the sound system was top notch! We sipped a special Iranian brew of tea and slouched on the super comfy sofa.

Worst Moment

The worst moment has nothing to do with Zurich, but with figuring out how to go to our intended next destination. Our plan was to go Vaduz, Liechtenstein during the day (so we could cross one more country off the list) and then we wanted to join some old friends of ours in Prutz, Austria for few days on the snow. I lost an entire afternoon trying to figure out the cheapest way to achieve this, but whatever I tried it always came up to 100 euros and included 3 or 4 different trains and buses. Also it would have taken another great deal of transports and money to reach Prague, which is where we want to go afterwards. So I lost hours stressing out and feeling a bit defeated and then I was looking on Flixbus what coaches left Zurich and one of the destinations was Munich, Germany. The bus was really reasonably priced and so we decided to scrap the original plan and go to Munich instead! When life doesn't go right, go left.

Healthy Tips

I am sure you are sick of hearing this but there are vegetables, fruit and grains all over the world so nothing new to report! We carried with us the shopping we made from Luxembourg as well as all the leftover vegan chocolate cake our generous friends in Luxembourg made for Adam's birthday. We also had some unused vegetables which I "recycled" for dinner making some zucchini, aubergine, tomatoes spaghetti, and we cooked the leftover couscous and sweet potatoes which we took with us on the bus to Munich for lunch. Nothing gets wasted, and this way we always have food on us that is healthy and homemade. I believe we are eating much better than we used to because now we only eat when we are hungry, since our lives are quite dense of different activities, so we don't snack for boredom or overeat because it's laying around.

Zero Waste Tips

As I just mentioned, we didn't do an incredible amount of food shopping, the only thing we bought was a cardboard box of spaghetti without plastic and some zucchini which came with the usual sticker. Having our reusable bowl with the lid is proving incredibly useful because we can cook more than we need and store some in the bowl for the next day.

Final warnings: Zurich is expensive! Just to give you an idea a black coffee from Starbucks is 6 euros, and we had no intention of buying it. Also the "no WiFi" ordeal can make things a little more complicated if you have to reach a specific location, but a way around could be to download the map of Zurich from Google Maps and then using the GPS which works without internet connection. Of course, we thought of this after running in circles outside the main station for 1 hour!

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Transportation Footprint: 275 miles = 0.01 metric tons of CO2e

we paid £0,23 each to Atmosfair.com to Zero our footprint

VS Plane: Flight Luxembourg to Zurich = 0.04 metric tons of CO2e

How Long We Stayed: 1 day

Accommodation: Free thanks to Juerg from Couchsurfing

Expenses for both of us:

~ Food: £3.8

~ Transport: £54.5 Flixbus + £14.5 Daily Pass

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