Imagine a boulevard lined at one end with banks and squat department stores, which suddenly opens into a lake of the brightest blue, covered with sailboats and swans. Consider a city of enormous commercial fame, where stock markets and brokers’ houses stand a five-minute walk from brooding forests and mountain chateaus. Think of efficient business activity carried on amid sidewalk cafes and tearoom conversations.
Zurich, the locale of these contrasts, is the city I’d choose for a first introduction to the land of contrasts, Switzerland. It is, to begin with, a functioning Swiss city, and not a single-minded resort center like Lucerne or St. Moritz. And yet it enjoys all the better attributes of a Swiss tourist attraction: heartstopping scenery; the restful calm that comes from an atmosphere of cleanliness and honest dealing; the varietyand interest to be found in the multilingual, multi-national character of the country; and finally, costs law enough to remove the fear of expense from your vacation thoughts.
TIP: If your trip to Europe is a summer one, try to schedule your Zurich stay for August 1, the national independence day of the country, when bonfires are burned on the mountain tops, bands play on every city square, and cafes stay open all night. The holiday is lovingly celebrated by the Swiss; every home in Zurich puts out a Swiss flag, and the banners of the twenty-two Swiss cantons are displayed round the lake.
During this period, the hotel situation in Zurich becomes tight (although not desperate), and you’d do well to stop in at the “Verkehrs Bureau” (city tourist office) in the rail-road station building, to the right, as you leave the main entrance, and request their aid in finding a room. At all other times in Zurich, you can do it much better without official aid, by consulting the recommendations.
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