Zürich

16th April

Today we had lazy start to the day as we'd gone to bed so late the night before. Peirrick and Ursula had a 5 month old baby girl so Jay was so happy!

Ursula told us that today there was a special celebration in town called Sechseläuten. They build a wooden snowman and then burn it. It is meant to predict the weather in Summer - the quicker it burns the hotter the Summer will be.

Once we were in the city we went to the information centre where they gave us a map of the parade and confirmed that the burning of the snowman would be at 6pm.

First we went on a boat down the river. It took an hour.

After that we went out for lunch as it was my birthday. We had (not very good) steak with baked potato and a delicious Mexican soup.

Next we decided to follow the old town walking tour but quickly flagged that idea and waited for the parade to start instead.

I have never seen so many piccolos! The canton of Basel was invited to participate in the parade this year and crazy masks and piccolos are their signature thing!

They gave out lollies, honey biscuits and wine! Many of the elaborate costumes were related to jobs in the old days.

After an hour and a half the parade was still going but we'd had enough. We went to meet up with our hosts near the wooden snowman.

When 6pm came around it was so busy you couldn't move. It was terrible! We did however manage to see the snowman.

After that we squished past people taking 20 minutes to do the 5 minute walk to the train station.

Once home I cooked some pasta with tomato and beef. Everyone was very hungry and we ate it all. Ursula and Pierrick get free food from their job and we were happy to help eat it as the food in Switzerland is ridiculously expensive.

17th April

Today we took the train to a nearby station to go up the mountain. We took the Adliswil-Felseneggto cable car the top and went for a walk in the woods. Unfortunately because it was still early the views were still a little hazy.

We then headed back to the city to do the self guided walking tour of the Old Town. We stopped in Lindenhof to eat our lunch as it was a pretty park with some lovely views.

St Peter's Church had a huge clock face that's 8.7m in diameter.

St Peter's Church 

Fraumunster

To our surprise we came across a flower clock located in the Bürkliplatz area. We then crossed over the bridge to see the other side of the Old Town.

When we reached Sechseläuten Platz (a square) there was some huge pikes of dirt. I was puzzled to what they were doing until I realised that that was where the wooden snowman was burnt the night before and the piles were the remains of it.

The Opera House at the Square (ash piles are behind us, no photo of that). 

We walked to the University Zoological Museum. Everything was in German so we just looked at the displays. There were lots of stuffed animals and a section with fossils.

The University was up quite high so offered good views of the town.

After that we walked along the river looking at the buildings along the way. We rested at the park near the train station and then went back to our accommodation.

Ursula and Pierrick decided to have a BBQ for dinner. By the time everything was ready it was pretty late but it was good fun. Their apartment is right next to the woods and there's a BBQ area.

Jay in baby heaven!