Zurich is a global center for banking and finance situated in central Switzerland. While Zurich has the largest population, airport, and main train station, the capital of Switzerland is Bern. More people travel through the train station than the total population of the city. The city has been permanently inhabited since the Roman times for 2,000 years, but there is evidence of human habitation from 6,400 years ago. The most notable church of Zurich is the Grossmunster built in the 12th century with twin towers. In the early 1500s a sect of the Protestant Reformation was led from the church by Ulrich Zwingli. Inside is a stone sculpture of Charlemagne. Some of the windows aren’t made of glass, but instead very thin slices of geode stones. Church of Our Lady Fraumunster has a slender blue spire that is very easy to spot in Zurich’s skyline. The last church we saw is the St. Peter Church which has the largest clock face in Europe. The clock face measures 8.7m in diameter. There are five bells dating from 1880 in the tower – the largest of which weighs over six tons without its clapper. Some of its foundation walls are from the 9th century. We went on a day trip into the countryside to Lucerne. It site on the coast of Lake Lucerne. The Lion Monument is a beautiful carving into the face of a stone cliff that is dedicated to the Swiss Body-Guards of Louis XVI of France who fell during the French Revolution. This was on August 10th, 1792 at the royal palace at the Tuileries in Paris. We also were able to walk across the Chapel Bridge. This bridge was first mentioned in text in 1367 as part of the city’s fortifications. The 111 gables were painted in the 17th and 18th century. A fire in August of 1993 destroyed all but 47 of the paintings. Our main stop was Mt. Pilatus, which is 7,000 feet above sea level where we could see 73 alpine peaks from the peak. Our visit had a significant amount of cloud cover that we went through while riding the cable cars. It was very stunning to see the peaks looking like islands among the clouds. Going back down the mountain we went on the world’s steepest cogwheel railway with an average of a 40% slope. The guy who planned building that was very ambitious!
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