(fanfare vocalizing)
- [Host] Yellow Productions Presents
a travel guide for Zurich in Switzerland.
(upbeat accordion music)
In this video I'll tell you everything you need to know
to visit the Swiss city of Zurich.
We'll start by taking a trip to Zurich's main train station,
we'll take a stroll down Zurich's main shopping street,
we'll stop in for some tasty Swiss sausages,
we'll have some cheap eats at the Manora department store,
and some vegetarian eats at Hitl,
and then we'll talk about Swiss chocolates,
followed up by the really neat fountains in Zurich,
then we'll talk about what souvenirs you might want
to bring back from Switzerland, and then I'll round out
the video with Zurich's other main
attractions in the Old Town area.
But before we get into all those attractions,
let me just give you some general background on Zurich.
Zurich is Switzerland's largest city
with a population of 400,000.
It is not the capital of Switzerland but it is
often considered to be the world's capital of banking.
Zurich has been ranked in a number of surveys
as having the best quality of life in the world.
It is the wealthiest city in Europe, as well as being ranked
as one of the top 10 most livable cities in the world.
Many travel guides will tell you if you're going to
Switzerland to skip Zurich altogether, but if you're
coming to Switzerland and you're flying in,
you'll likely be flying into Zurich, so I think it's
well worth a day either on your way in or your way out.
Everything I'll show you in this video, you can probably
fit into one or one and a half days in Zurich.
Zurich's main transportation hub is the Hauptbahnhof.
My German's maybe not so good,
but that's the main train station.
This is the main train station.
There's thousands of trains that come in here every day,
so if you're going to other places you'll probably
come through Zurich's main train station, also this is
Zurich's big shopping hub.
The stores in Zurich close notoriously early, but the stores
in the train station stay open often much later.
And if you're looking for tourist information,
find the big blue angel and just below it is a
a really helpful tourist service shop.
You can pick up maps, you can ask questions,
and you can pick up all sorts of Switzerland souvenirs.
And occasionally there's farmers markets here too.
I think every Wednesday evening, maybe more often, but
today's Wednesday and there's a farmers market back there
with fruits and vegetables, and some tasty ethnic treats.
Chances are if there's something you're looking for,
you'll find it in the main train station.
They've even got a 24-hour pharmacy.
For exploring Zurich where you'll
want to start is on the Bahnhofstrasse.
This street right behind me,
and it's just out from the train station in front of that
blue angel, it is the train station street.
There's a big fountain right there, and this is where
all of Zurich's big shops and big department stores are.
One of the main squares in the center of the city is
Paradeplatz, this square right here.
It's got the Savoy hotel right here,
one of the more expensive hotels in Zurich,
so that's not where we're staying.
The Fraumunster, which is right across the river
from the Grossmunster, that's the women's minster,
famous stained glass in there, though there's an admission
fee, but the coolest thing I like about this square
is you can see all the trams that come by.
Zurich has an extensive network of these street cars.
They'll take you about everywhere you need to go,
so you could walk but why waste your feet
when you can take those trams.
They're neat, they're clean, and it's amazing that they
actually stay on time, 'cause they have
to stop a lot for people to cross the street.
But you should be careful of them when you're walking
around, 'cause they are kind of quiet.
They can sneak up on you a little bit.
And if you walk Bahnhofstrasse all the way to the end,
you will get here to Lake Zurich.
This is a really big lake in Zurich, it runs 40 kilometers
long, from here there's also some sight-seeing boats
that you can take out on the lake.
On a warm day, you will see wind surfers out there,
and people doing all sorts of water sport lake activities,
or just sitting around and relaxing
at some of the benches here.
And yes, you might even just find some of Switzerland
iconic swans around here on the lake.
For some tasty sausages in a historic setting,
visit the Zeughauskeller.
This was built in the year 1400 as a armory,
but now they serve sausages and beer.
What a great combination.
If you can't decide which sausage to get,
they sell the sausage sampler, which is a
collection of sausages on a skewer,
and it'll come by default with a potato salad,
or you can also have it with what they call the
rosti which is kinda like hash browns.
So definitely a lively place to check out,
I don't know if you'd call these Swiss specialties,
but they sure look tasty.
For some cheap eats on the Bahnhofstrasse,
stop into the Manor department store.
There's the Manora Restaurant on the fifth floor,
which is the sixth 'cause
the zero floor is the ground level.
It's a cheap cafeteria-style buffet.
It's kind of all you can eat, like if you get one of the
meats, then you can add as many vegetables as you want
as long as it's all on the same plate for the same price.
My plate that has a little bit of chicken
on the bottom and lots of vegetables
and pasta on the top was about 14 francs.
Another cheap eat in the downtown
of Zurich is at the HITL house.
It's kind of a cafeteria buffet style.
You pick up a plate and you go through and you fill it up
with as much as you want, and then they weigh it
at the end and that's how you pay.
The price is 45 francs per kilogram.
So two kind of half-full plates of food was 35 francs.
I say it's cheap eats, because well, you do your math if
that's cheap to you or not, but Zurich style, it is cheap.
It is a particularly vegetarian restaurant,
so there's a lot of vegetarian Indian, vegetarian Thai,
you'll find some pretty good desserts, and there's a little
bit of chicken if you look all the way up on top.
One of the chocolate stores on the main shopping street
is called Sprungli.
It's right behind me right here.
This is kind of their big flagship store.
They've got two sides, a place where you can buy chocolates
but a place you can also sit outside cafe-style,
get coffee, drinks, you can get pastries.
We had kind of a taste chocolate pastry,
and they also sell chocolate
(speaks foreign language) or chocolate milk.
And this, well, it's the most
expensive chocolate milk I've ever bought.
550 Swiss francs, and it kind of has a unique taste.
You know why?
It has bourbon in it.
Most of the chocolate stores in Zurich you'll find they
sell the chocolate by weight, typically priced per the
100 grams, and most of these places there's no minimum.
You can get just get one, two pieces if you want.
You gotta lot of friends back at home,
course you can buy it by the box.
Some of the more interesting ones that I think I had here
were the champagne truffles, truffles with champagne inside.
I'm not sure that it's Dom Perignon though.
Zurich is a very fountain-friendly city.
There are over 1,200 public fountains in the city of Zurich.
Bottled water can be pretty expensive, it can be like
3 Swiss francs for a bottle of water.
But if you run out of your water, you can
just fill it up at these public fountains and
drink.
Delicious!
My bottle is empty, but the good thing is there's plenty
of fountains, and I've found what I think is Zurich's
coolest fountain, and I just can't figure out
how to get my water bottle over there,
but then I looked and it's not just decorative,
there's actually a little spout right over here
to fill up with some delicious water.
I mentioned it's delicious but the thing is
it's also cold and refreshing too, it's probably
melted snow that fills this up.
So when you're hot, you don't even need refrigerated
water, just get it right out of the fountain.
Wondering what souvenirs to bring back from Zurich,
well the Swiss are famous for their watches.
The Rolex store here, they've got some watches
in the window, well some that don't have prices,
but the ones that do have prices,
this one here is 35,000 francs.
Pretty cheap, bring that back to a loved one.
You know an interesting statistic about Switzerland
is 95% of the world's watches
that cost over $1,000 come from Switzerland.
So you can buy one of them right where it's made.
Some slightly more affordable souvenirs
are Swiss Army knives.
Something you'll see in a lot of stores are
wooden cows, yes, wooden cows.
Wouldn't you know it!
But if you can afford a Rolex, then buy one for me too.
Come up to the Lindenhof Park, it's this park on top of this
little or kind of big hill in the middle of Old Town Zurich,
and you can see commanding views of the river
and the buildings below.
Great place to get your orientation,
though I must say the park is not the most beautiful.
I guess 'cause it snows here, there's not a lot of grass.
But the view is beautiful.
Iconic to the Zurich skyline, is the Grossmunster.
The great minster church, with its two soaring towers.
You can pay 5 francs and go all the way up to the top
for some pretty good views of Zurich.
Even if you aren't climbing the tower, do head inside.
Admission is free, and make sure to
check out the crypt right below the altar.
Here's this kind of spooky statue and a sign that said
the first church is thought to be built
on this site in the year 700 something.
Just across the river from the
Grossmunster is the Fraumunster.
This is the women's minster.
It has some beautiful stained glass windows inside.
Admission to this one is 5 Swiss francs.
A good place to come in the evening when all the shops
on the Bahnhofstrasse are closing, is across the river
on the side with the Grossmunster, the church with the two
steeples, into the Neiderdorf District.
This is the Neiderdorf Strasse, big pedestrian street,
and this area has a lot of restaurants, bars,
and it's also kind of the slightly seedier side,
the red light district, I'm looking at a place
that does tattoo and piercings, too.
So many tourist books would describe
this as the colorful part of Zurich.
That brings us to the end of this video,
(upbeat accordion music)
and so Topher and I, we hope you enjoyed it.
If you got something useful out of it,
please hit the thumbs up below.
Or maybe consider subscribing for new videos every weekend,
or you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.
The links are in the description below.
Or you might enjoy watching some
more of our Switzerland series.
Click either of these to watch,
or if you haven't subscribed yet,
click on this yellow ball over here to subscribe.
All right, bye-bye!
(upbeat accordion music)