Our dear friend, Bella (Dolly Goolsby) is on the go again, this time in Italy. She has graciously allowed us to republish her travel blogs. Enjoy!
Wow! I am really falling behind in my blogging. Once again, we are moving, but most are going different directions.
Our group tour officially ended on Tuesday, June 12, but 5 of us elected to stay on in Zurich for another day. On Tuesday, we arrived in Zurich barely in time to get lunch before everything closed for the afternoon.
We got checked into our hotel, then took a walk along the Bahnhofstrasse, the Main Street from the train station to the lake. It was such a nice day, we decided to take a short (2 hour) cruise around the lake. We sat up top, had our afternoon aperitif, and watched the swans swim by, one hardy person wake boarding, some sail boats, but we also just relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful view.
The following day Shelora had to leave for home. After breakfast, Janis and I did the Rick Steves’ walking tour of Zurich, which the book said would take one hour….it took us two, but what wonderful things we saw. I swear there are a hundred churches in Zurich. We only went into a couple of them, but the little streets behind the main streets and the history associated with them was very interesting.
The town watchman used to live above the clock in St. Peterskirche. (circa 1700\0x2032s). If the watchman spotted a fire, he rang the alarm, then put a flag out of the window which was facing the fire. Pretty unique system. But his living quarters look a bit too claustrophobic for me.
We did go into one of the churches, the Fraumuenster, as its stained glassed windows were done by the artist, Marc Chagall, in the late 1960\0x2032s. He was 80 years old when he started the project, and it took him 3 years to finish.
I am sorry I do not have any pictures, as photo taking was not allowed, but if you are really interested I would imagine that one could find the windows on the Internet. The 5 windows are very long and narrow, and set into the spacious area behind the altar. His windows depict many Biblical scenes, encompassing Jewish, Protestant and Catholic traditions.
Later, after lunch, we took a funicular up to the top of the mountain behind us, and found another community…this area is where the University of Zurich has its campus. It isthe largest university in Switzerland. It reminded me of University of California at Davis campus, as the buildings were not all clusterd together, but scattered around the community, with grassy lawns, wide open spaces for students to gather, a cafeteria that overlooked the main city…the Technical College, the ETH, has graduated 25 Nobel Prize winners, including Albert Einstein.
Finally we met up with the others, and all went to dinner together, followed by another walk along the river. Now we had to collect all our things together, as we were all leaving the next day. But along with our clothes and souvenirs, I am certain we all packed many memories that will remain with us forever.
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