The Traveling Martens

Switzerland

Switzerland, also known as Schweiz (German), Suisse (French), Svizzera (Italian), and Svizra (Romansh) in each of its four official languages, is bordered by France to the west, Italy to the south, and Germany and Austria to the north and east.

Zurich - Swiss Banking Capital or Street Parade Capital?

Mel: When Stacy first suggested going to Zurich for an outdoor electronic music festival, I thought "Yeah, right." We had a one-day layover in Zurich a few years ago, and I remembered it as modern, clean, home to global financial companies like UBS, and completely out of place for dancing and loud music. After seeing some videos and pics of the Zurich Street Parade on the Internet, we decided to go, still unsure how it would all fit together.

We took a direct overnight flight (gotta love directs and overnights) from Miami to Zurich. It was a quick and easy train ride to the city center. The Central Plaza Hotel (www.central.ch) where we were staying was just across the street (great planning Stacy!). The Hotel sits on the Limmat River, which separates the shopping/business district from the old town area with its bars and restaurants. The river, shops, and restaurants all spill down towards the Lake of Zurich.

We arrived on a Thursday morning; the Street Parade was on Saturday. We had no idea what to expect before or after the parade, but didn't see many signs yet of the madness to come. It was cloudy and sprinkling rain all day on Thursday and Friday while we walked around the city.

Below: Pictures of the Zurich countryside, cute buildings in old town, and bicyclists (click for bigger pictures).

Stacy: As my friends and family know, I am one of those types that is always looking to travel. I call Mel at least once a month with a crazy last minute travel idea. Most of them, he talks me out of, this one he lost.

Why a street parade? We just decided we are not getting any younger and might look funny coming to this event in our 80s. We were wrong. The city and street parade were full of people of all ages.

The average swiss is 40 years old and has 1.43 childrens, very similiar to America. Oh wait, they eat two pounds of chocolate and drink a quart of liquer every month. So, being a non-meat eater I fit right in. Chocolate, liquor and an amazing varierty of vegetarian restaurants - Heaven.

After our eight hour overnight, we stumbled upon the Niederdorf neighborhood - a vibrant, cobbled street area with restaurants, little shops, cafes and no traffic. Being hungry, we picked the first buffett we saw. To our surprise, it was an all vegetarian buffet and the best selection I have ever seen. It turned out to be the first vegetarian restaurant in the world, Hiltl Vegetarian Restaurant.  We did save room for Laderach Chocolatier and my mouth is watering just writing this. The aroma overtook our senses and we just had to have some. No wonder they eat two pounds a chocalate a MONTH!

With a desire to eat more chocolate, we figured we should burn some calories and walk around town. Zurich is at the northwern tip of the 25 mile long Lake Zurich (Zurichsee). Everyday we got lost in the path for walkers and bikers that followed the lake for miles. Zurich is very easy to get around.

Mel: While walking around, we met a finance executive for Kraft, an accountant for Ernst and Young who works on financial clients, and sat with a businessman in our hotel lobby and talked about the stock market (while eating chocolate!) So we were having a hard time picturing what the city would be like during the Street Parade.

We started to feel the energy growing the morning of the parade, as people started pouring into town from the main train station. Extra trains were running to carry people into Zurich from all over Europe. Nearly a million people came into Zurich for the parade.

Zurich Street Parade

What is the parade exactly? Well, the city shuts down a 3 mile stretch of its main road along the edge of the lake by downtown Zurich. Then, a parade of 25 floats on the back of 18-wheeler semi trucks, each carrying a DJ and a dance party on its bed, crawls through the million people along the parade route. People get dressed up in crazy outfits and everyone dances with each float as it inches by. As if that wasn't enough, Paul van Dyk, Sander Kleinenberg, and other top DJs were playing on stages all along the parade route. The Europeans definitely know how to have fun! We joined in, and were dancing from noon till midnight.

To really do it justice though, you've got to check out this video:

 Wow! We are definitely going back for the 2008 Zurich Street Parade! Anyone want to join us?

The next day, the streets were swept, the partyers had taken trains back home, and the city was back to normal.

Stacy: We spent our last day enjoying the weather outside. While walking through Kongresshaus along the lake path, we discovered Acqua. A top five roof-top bar in our book. We lost ourselves in the view and six hours later (and a few vodka's down) we determined we wanted to create this website and share our best ideas with others.