We took a family vacation at the end of 2023 to Switzerland, spending a week there. Though we were based out of Zürich, we did take a couple of day trips to nearby parts of Switzerland. I overall really enjoyed Switzerland—it’s a supremely beautiful country, although I will say that it’s also supremely expensive.1
We landed in Zürich on December 23, just as the Christmas markets were wrapping up. I was sadly out of commission for roughly the first day and a half of our visit, having come down with some kind of sickness. I was therefore unable to see any of the Christmas markets, but I’m told that they were quite pretty. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to go again next time.
We attended Christmas Eve service at the International Protestant Church of Zürich, which held a traditional Festival of the Nine Lessons and Carols. To be honest, what stood out most from the service was the spectacle of the carols sung by the choir, but I’m okay with that. Often times, when I go on vacation, I like to attend churches that I wouldn’t otherwise (regularly) attend at home; in the same vein, I’ve been to services at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral during previous trips to London.
Anyway, we spent much of the next few days spending time together as a family and touring the city. Zürich is generally a fairly picturesque European city, with a lovely, walk-able old town nestled along the river Limmat and framed against the spectacular Swiss Alps. The waters of the Limmat are remarkably crystal clear and free of debris, so that you can easily see the riverbed. Not so the Hudson or (shudder) the Thames…
When he heard that I was going to Zürich, a coworker who had recently been to Switzerland insisted that the number one thing I ought to do while there was to visit the Üetliberg, a hill just outside the city from which one can see a lovely panoramic view of Lake Zürich and the surrounding area. I think he generally has good taste, so I decided to trust his recommendation here. He turned out to be right: the views were indeed quite nice. I don’t know that I would call it breathtaking, but it’s certainly worth a stop if you ever find yourself in town.
Probably my favorite place that we visited was the Grossmünster, a notable church that was once pastored by famous Reformer Ulrich Zwingli.2 The church itself is quite lovely and iconic, but what made our visit extra special was climbing one of the church towers. The top of the tower offers one of the best views of Zürich you can ever hope to find. (I’ve included a picture at the top of this section.)
We did some other fun stuff around the city. We took the funicular to ETH Zürich, probably the most famous university on the European continent, at least in the field of computer science. We also went to a couple of interesting museums, including the WOW Museum (full of optical illusions—great fun for the family!) and the Landesmuseum (the Swiss National Museum—some fun exhibits about Calvin!). We also checked off Annabel’s number one thing to do in Switzerland, which was to shop at the Brandy Melville3 in Zürich…
A funny story: we walked into a chocolatier to buy some chocolates to bring home to share with friends and family. Taking us to be tourists from China, they dispatched their Mandarin-speaking, ethnically Chinese salesperson to talk to me! He recommended that I buy their fresh chocolate, calling it particularly good. I decided to buy one, and it was indeed quite good.
One cool thing that I sadly did not get to see: apparently, Erwin Schrödinger used to live in Zürich, and outside his old house, someone has painted a cat!
We didn’t spent all of our time in Zürich, though. We also made a day trip out to Lucerne, which is probably the tourist hub of Switzerland. And it’s for good reason: Lucerne is even more picturesque than Zürich. Definitely the highlight of this day trip and an absolute must-see when there was Pilatus, a mountain near the city. It’s accessible by cable car, so there’s really no excuse for not visiting. The views from the top were absolutely stunning! I know that I say that a lot, but you should judge for yourself from the picture:
During the summer, you can hike around the summit, but during the winter, there’s not much to do besides enjoy the view. There are a few restaurants on the mountain and near the summit; as befits any Swiss tourist place, they are quite expensive, but I think the view alone is worth it. I got to eat Swiss rösti while staring out the window at the glorious peaks of nearby mountains. There were also tons of birds near the summit who were more than happy to land on tourists’ heads, especially if you happened to have bread with you. There are some pictures of these birds on my head; I’ll have to upload them once I find them.
The city of Lucerne also has a few interesting things to see. We walked by but did not enter the Bourbaki Panorama, a panoramic painting depicting an army led by the French general Charles-Denis Bourbaki. The name is probably familiar to you because he’s the namesake of the more well-known Nicolas Bourbaki, the world-famous mathematical pseudonym.4
There’s also a well-known wooden bridge in town (the Kapellbrücke) whose painted decorations apparently date back to the seventeenth century. And, of course, there’s that famous lion statue that everyone wants to see because Mark Twain once called it “the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.”
It’s not world-famous, but nearby the Lion of Lucerne is a fun Glacier Garden, where you can see the effects of erosion by glaciers over time. It has a decent outlook over the city and a pretty fun mirror maze (more fun for the family!), so I think it’s worth a peek if you’re already seeing the lion.
In general, Lucerne was quite a fun city; I can see why it’s one of the most popular tourist destinations in Switzerland.
I don’t know if we’re really a “skiing family,” but my dad did take me skiing fairly often when I was a kid. Many Saturdays during the winter back when I was in elementary school, we’d get up at (or before) the crack of dawn, and he’d drive me down to the Poconos to go skiing at a local resort for the day. It was great fun, and I think I turned into a decent skier. Incidentally, this is also how I first memorized my times tables: since there was nothing much to do during those long car rides, my dad would drill me in multiplication facts!5
Anyway, that was quite a while ago. I’d gone skiing a couple of times in high school, but I’d never gone in college.6 I finally got to go again when we were in Switzerland!
We didn’t go to a particularly famous or even nice resort; we went to a small mountain mostly populated by local families. The mountain was so small that I don’t think there was a single black diamond trail; it was so non-foreign-touristy that the guy selling the lift tickets didn’t speak English. (Thankfully, a kind stranger saw my struggle to communicate with the lift ticket guy and helped translate for us.) I will be honest: the conditions were not excellent. We took a train and then a bus to the mountain; the view of the lake on the bus was particularly nice.
Awkwardly, we accidentally got off the bus at the wrong stop, so we had to wait a bit for the next one. While we were waiting, we talked to a guy at a local tourist info desk who told us that one of the local resorts was closed for lack of snow. Lack of snow in Switzerland! Global warming is really coming for us…anyway, fortunately there was snow on another resort further up the mountain, but sadly the snow was of rather poor quality.
The skiing itself was not that excellent—the snow was bad, and as I mentioned earlier, this was a small, family-oriented resort mainly visited by locals. It was a far cry from Mont Blanc in the High Alps. But the wonderful thing was how good the views were: one could see snow-capped peaks in the distance, making for a fairly enjoyable experience. I honestly thought that the view was better than Lake Tahoe when I went skiing there.
Apparently, Amden (the place we went) also has good hiking in the summer, so maybe I’ll go back some day in the warmer months.
Famously, Switzerland tops out The Economist’s raw Big Mac index, and comes second in the GDP-adjusted list, at least as of December 2023.↩︎
Zwingli is known for, among other things, the memorialist view of the Lord’s Supper, which is what’s generally taught in Baptist churches today.↩︎
I related this episode to Rachel, who then deemed my sister a “real one.”↩︎
Allegedly, the name was minted by an enterprising grad student who pranked some underclassmen at the École normale supérieure by pretending to be a professor and presenting “a theorem of Bourbaki.”↩︎
I still remember his sagely advice: start with the sevens, because they’re the hardest. If you can memorize the sevens, you can memorize everything else!↩︎
I actually once missed an ACF ski trip my freshman year. This is what prompted me to join ACF Misc on Facebook: I’d stubbornly held out against joining because of my famous dislike of Facebook, but I was sad enough about missing out on skiing that I decided to join. Of course, we never had an ACF ski trip again…↩︎