The Accountant March-April 2016

TRAVEL
TRAVEL
By Clive Mutiso, clivemutiso@gmail.com, Photos: Zurich
A CITY THAT
RUNS LIKE A
SWISS WATCH
The ancient Swiss city of
Zurich, the biggest in the
country, as well as the leading
financial centre, is nestled at
the northern end of the narrow
lake of the same name, and is a startling
contrast to the chaotic urban environment
that African visitors are used to back home.
It is a pristine metropolis that runs like a
Swiss watch. The people of Switzerland
do not wear watches as bracelets, but as
essential tools to managing their time.
While travel timetables in Kenya could
often take honours in the Man Booker
Prize for Contemporary Fiction, in Zurich
the timetables mean what they say. It is
possible to plan a journey to the city and
all the way through it using airline, train,
and tram timetables that are timed to the
minute. The schedules are published, and
can be relied on. Departure intervals vary
from every 10 to every fifteen minutes,
depending on the time of the day, but the
airport to the Central Railway Station
(Hauptbanhof ) takes exactly 11 minutes.
From the Hauptbanhof, there are
scheduled tram services to every part of
the city, which run exactly on time, and
the tram is the ideal way of getting around
the city. Buy your prepaid tram travel card
before you board the tram, and swipe it on
the way your destination, because there
are regular
checks along
the way that
travellers have paid their fare.
Even the Presidents of Switzerland, an
office which is held for a year at a time,
usually take the trains and trams to travel
to work, or move around the country on
official duties. There are no motorcades, no
bodyguards, no fanfare, and no vast public
expenditure on VIP treatment.
Before leaving the Hauptbanhof, it
is well worth taking a quick tour of the
extensive ShopVille shopping centre
that is an integral part of the station
complex, open for extended hours 365
days a year, and offering a range of shops,
restaurants, takeaways, pharmacies and
mini-supermarkets. The prices, in Swiss
Francs, might seem high at first, but the
visitor soon gets used to the fact that the
Swiss Franc is strong and steadily getting
stronger, and that prices are pretty uniform
wherever you go, irrespective of the type of
outlet where you go exploring. There are
not many bargains to be had – the Swiss
shopping experience is about quality, not
rock bottom prices, which is why the Swiss
brand has spawned up market shopping
centres as far apart as London and Kuala
Lumpur.
Rents, wages, and other costs are high
i n
Switzerland,
and these factors are
reflected in the prices of even
soft drinks and snacks at street outlets, so
a full meal in a hotel or restaurant can
be much better value than a snatched
meal on the run. Feel free to ask advice
or directions from Swiss strangers on
the street. The country has four official
languages – French, German, Italian,
and the unique Romansch tongue, and
most Swiss are fluent in them all, as well
as English, which many of them speak
more grammatically than the English
themselves. The Swiss are proud of their
country, and are happy to guide visitors on
where to go and what to see.
Wherever you stay in Zurich, whether
it is the one of the magnificent five-star
properties like the baroque Dolder Grand
Hotel, or the distinctive, artistic, Widder
Hotel, in the city centre, or a two-star
or three-star establishment in the same
vicinity, you can count on standards of
service and value for money that have
made Zurich a prime tourist destination
for more than a century. A visitor is spoiled
for choice in the three-star category, and
can expect to pay between $200 and
$350 a night for a double room with
breakfast, depending on the season.
Most visitors to Zurich combine
a business trip to one of the discreet
private banking houses with shopping
for luxury goods, of which there is an
almost limitless array in the shops and
boutiques around the city centre. Every
major Swiss brand of watch is available in
almost infinite variety, with most brands
having showrooms of their own, with
their full range on display. The ageless
beauty of the hand-crafted timepieces
– and the exclusive prices – will take
your breath away. But you can get a real
Swiss watch, for a fraction of the price
of one of the traditional prestige brands,
if you opt for a plastic-cased Swatch –
the quality fashion accessory that can
be had for just a few Dollars. There is a
comprehensive collection on offer at the
Swatch Shop on the Bahnhofstrasse,
just down the road from the Central
Train Station.
Almost any part of the city is a great
vantage point from which to view the
lake, and almost any part of the lake is
a great place from to view the city with
its mountain backdrop of the snowcapped
Alps. There are all sorts of lake
trips to choose from, all boarded from
the dock on the city centre end of the
lake. You can choose from short round
trips, point-to-point trips across the
lake, dance boats, a breakfast boat, a
brunch boat, a barbeque boat, a cheese
fondue boat, a Chinese fondue boat,
or a party boat. Eating and drinking
are an important part of the Zurich
experience.
That is one of the reasons why no
visit to Zurich is complete without
at least one meal at the Restaurant
zumKropf, in the heart of the city,
which has been renowned for its
traditional Bavarian-Swiss cuisine since
the 19th Century. Restaurant zumKropf
effortlessly re-creates the ambience of a
Bavarian beer hall, and the restaurant
offers filling specialties and classics that
are especially welcome when there is a
chill wind sweeping across Lake Zurich
or plunging down from the surrounding
Alps. In keeping with modern tastes,
there is a light menu, but it is not really
a place for dainty nouvelle cuisine – it is
where you go when you are hungry and
are looking for a filling feast. You will
not find nyama choma, but who would
want it when there is the option of
Choucroutegarnie, the spectacular meat
meal imported from the Alsace border
region of France? The dish comprises
a bit of pickled cabbage, from which
it takes its name, but the sauerkraut is
usually buried under a pile of artisan
sausages, pickled meats and roasted
cuts. If eaten regularly, it is especially
recommended for gout or heart attacks
– not curing them, but causing them.
Crusty Bürli bread rolls, with
lashings of fresh butter, are served
throughout the meal on every table.
Specialties of the house are boiled beef,
legendary sliced veal Zurich style with
Rösti hashed brown potatoes, or Pork
shank with potato salad. If you love
meat, Restaurant zumKropf is just the
place for you – veal, or pork, sausages
and homemade liver dumpling soup are
served and the portions are meant for
serious eating, not sampling. The wine
list is well suited to the hearty, homestyle
cooking and offers high-class wines
at reasonable prices, also available by the
glass. With its fascinating wall paintings,
unique ambiance, and wide selection of
food and drinks, the place invites you for
a relaxing visit, or a daily feast.
And how about the nightlife in this
modern city? A big seller in the tourist
shops is the classic postcard “Zurich
By Night.” It has those words, in neon
colours, and nothing else at all, on a
pitch black background. As the sun goes
down, time runs down, and the stolid
Calvinistic burgers of Zurich are tucked
up in their beds. While there is plenty
to do and see during the day, the main
activity at night is sleeping to plan an
early start the next morning.
66 MARCH - APRIL 2016
MARCH - APRIL 2016 67