Day 4 - Notes from Zurich.

 TRAVEL TIPS

Number 1: bring lots of money. I am constantly amazed how expensive things are here.  If you use a credit card they will offer to convert your bill to US dollars but the exchange rate is about 1 CHF = $ 1.02.  You can elect CHF and take the daily bank rate.  My credit card adds 3% so if the bank rate is less than $0.98 to the 1 CHF you will actually do better to let your bank do the conversion.

Number 2: If you have an unlocked quad band GSM phone bring it.  I picked up a Lebra CH SIM card and 5 CHF credit in the train station for 5 CHF.  The phone now calls the US for $0.28 for the first minute and $0.09 for each additional minute.  This is a better deal than the pre-paid phone card I used in the past.  This also gives you a local phone number that you can use.  So much better than the phone card in this respect.  The deal in other countries is worse than using my US AT&T phone on international roaming so I will have to look for inexpensive SIM deals in each country I visit.  Two weeks to go and we will have to see how that works out.

WHAT TO DO

From the main train station take the S10 train to Utilberg. This train will give you a beautiful ride up the mountain near Zurich.  When you reach Utilberg you can walk up the trail behind the train station to the top of the hill (about half a mile).  There you will find a spectacular view of the city in the valley below.  There is also a Hotel/Restaurant that we stopped at for lunch on Sunday.  They were having "Swiss Adventure" for kids up on the mountain that weekend and there were hundreds of kids zip-lining throughout the trees and dropping off the communications tower on a rope and harness.  They were landing right next to where we were having lunch on the patio.  The weekend is family time and the train that runs every 30 minutes during the week between Zurich and Utilberg runs ever 20 minutes on the weekend.  Many people come up and just wander on the beautiful and well maintained trails that cover the mountain.  Many trails were like small roads and there were lots of mountain bikers.  Just a fantastic place for outdoor sports.  Along one of the trails there is an educational exhibit about the solar system. It starts with a model of the Sun and as you hike the trail you come to Mercury and Venus and so on all the way to Pluto.  It is amazing to feel the physical distance and see the relative size of each planet from this presentation.  As a physicist I know these things as facts, but the actual physical presentation really brings it home with a sense of proportion better than any other presentation I have seem.

We visited the Museum for Design Sunday afternoon after we got back from the mountain.  Just two stops on Tram 4 from the main train station… drops you right in front of the Museum (well you have to cross a small park) but you can see the building.  Interesting but smaller that I expected.  Two curated exhibits both well done.  Entrance is 12 CHF/person and we sent about 90 minutes on the exhibits.  If you are interest in design you want to see it just for the design of the exhibits. 

So tomorrow we pack up and leave for Heppinheim, Deutschland.  So far this has been a great experience.