Or Swiss Hospitality… Am I taking this too far? 😉

We had friends here over the weekend, which was lovely. I talked myself hoarse (I’ve missed chatting to people!) and explored some previously known and unknown bits of Zurich. It’s all still so new to us that even the things we’ve been to before have fresh aspects to discover every time. Niederdorf  is lovely and it feels like I’ve only just scratched the surface of the cool stuff that’s there. And Uetliberg has been improved since my last visit with a new kids’ playground.

I took my first trip out to Zurich airport on the tram – a very easy, 16 minute journey. In fact I went twice because we were so excited about seeing each other that we left a bag behind, so we had to go back for it. I was pleasantly surprised that said bag was just sitting calmly at the information desk and the smiley ladies handed it over after we’d identified the contents (a beautiful housewarming gift, so glad we found it!). They said they would have held onto it for 24 hours before sending it to the official Lost Property. Now, I may be wrong here, but I reckon a mysterious bag abandoned at a UK airport would probably be removed and destroyed, not returned with a smile.

Another first was paying a babysitter so the adults could go out to dinner. I think this was more of a big deal for myself and HI than P. Life with a baby/toddler/child is a series of milestones and this was one. It was fine, of course. We had a cheerful, traditional Swiss meal at Zeughauskeller where we shared a table with some business traveller-types who were talking watches (we figured they were enroute to BaselWorld watch fair). Ironically, it seems the Keller is one of Zurich’s few family-friendly dinner spots, with babies/children at many surrounding tables! Still glad we left ours at home though…

I think we need to get our mojo back with choosing bars. The places we went for cocktails after dinner were not great. The Jules Verne was too crowded and Hotel Rivington looked amazing but the bar staff were complete cocktail amateurs and the setup just wasn’t right for a cocktail bar (I have since read it’s “great for brunch”).  Oh well… now we have a babysitter, we can continue our exploration of Zurich nightlife and hopefully find some really excellent places. All it costs is money. A lot of money. Woh