Shopping in Zurich

I am unfortunately fighting off a cold right now but still managing to have a good time.

Somehow I remembered London being more expensive than it turned out to be on this trip.  I now know that London can be fairly reasonable, but Zurich is the pits!  Every time I got a tall (aka small) coffee at Starbucks, it was around $6.  Yup, that’s right… about twice the price.  To be fair, they really know how to make a good caramel latte.

Our hotel was nestled in among stores like Gucci, Prada, Hugo Boss and Giorgio Armani, but even when you’re not shopping high fashion (which we didn’t), the prices there are really quite high.  Needless to say, we didn’t go crazy shopping in Zurich, but we roamed around on our last day looking for interesting finds that weren’t too outrageously prices.

We headed to Old Town and hit a music store that Jim wanted to visit.  They certainly had some interesting stuff there but nothing we had to have.

Then we hit a department store called Manor where I bought 3 pairs of really lovely socks – two of them are over-the-knee.  How fun!  Since I need to spend the entire winter in Vermont, I’d like to be stylishly warm.

After much contemplation, I decided I’d get one of those round things people used to wear on their wrist that tell the time.  I don’t think I’ve ever owned a Swatch, but then I’ve always been late on the draw with prevailing trends.  I’m pretty sure I do that on purpose.  Anyway, it’s a great little watch and was surprisingly affordable.

Sprüngli was our next stop as it had been recommended to us by several folks back home.  Sprüngli is a confectioner that makes a special treat called Luxemburgerli.  I’m pretty sure somehow the name Hamburglar was thus derived.  Anyway, they look like little hamburgers but are made of meringue and lots of sugar.  They are about $1 each, and we picked out 2 each of 4 different flavors.  They really do melt in your mouth, but they have a short life and must be eaten quickly.  We made sure they didn’t go bad!

Our last buy of the day was a pair of Ecco shoes each.  I’ve never owned a pair but had heard a lot about them.  Mine are going to need a bit of breaking in, but they are quite attractive.  I love the European look of them, and I love European shoes in general.  I can almost always tell by someone’s shoes if they’re European or if the shoes were at least purchased in Europe.  The hiking shoes I bought in London are the still the most comfy pair I have with me.

After we were all shopped out, we headed back to the hotel where they were holding our bags.  We had some time to kill (as evidenced by the dials on my Swatch), so we had some water and tea in the hotel lobby.  Then we headed over to the train station to wait.

We were unsure of the dinner situation on the train, and as it turned out, we didn’t get any.  But we did get water, juice and even a small bottle of champagne for free.  What a nice way to start our journey.  Our accommodations took the form of a double bunk room with its own bathroom.  For someone who is a night peer, I really appreciated it.  Once it got close to 10:00 p.m., we got the attendant to turn our seats into the bottom bunk.  Again, because I am a night peer, Jim slept on the top bunk.

Here are a few photos taken before the sun went down as we sped along at 100 mph across Switzerland.