A Few Days in Zürich

A stop between two other trips

Our February 2017 stay in Zürich came as a link in a longer stretch of travel, sitting between time in Madrid and Seville and a later stop at the Austrian thermal spas. We stayed at the Opera Hotel Zürich for a few days, enough to get a proper feel for Switzerland’s largest city without needing to see everything it has to offer.

Walking the Altstadt

Zürich’s Old Town, the Altstadt, runs along both banks of the Limmat river, and it’s a genuinely pleasant place to walk regardless of the season — narrow streets, church spires, and a general sense of order that Zürich seems to carry into everything. We spent a good part of our short stay simply wandering between the two riverbanks, crossing back and forth over the old bridges and ducking into cafés and chocolate shops along the way. Despite Zürich’s reputation as a serious financial center, the old town itself feels surprisingly relaxed and human-scaled, more café culture than corporate towers.

Lake Zürich in winter

We also walked along Lake Zürich, which in February was far too cold for anything beyond looking at it, but the walk itself was worth doing regardless. The lake gives the city a natural focal point, with mountains visible in the distance on clear days, and even in winter it’s a scenic, easy walk rather than something to save for summer only. In warmer months the lakefront is apparently a proper summer destination in its own right, with swimming spots and lakeside promenades that get genuinely busy — we could see the appeal even bundled up against the February cold, and it’s easy to imagine coming back at a different time of year just for that.

A city of two reputations

Zürich carries two reputations that sit slightly at odds with each other — a global banking and finance center on one hand, and a genuinely walkable, chocolate-and-café old town on the other. Spending a few days there, both were true at once: the financial-center reputation is real and visible if you look for it, particularly around the more modern districts away from the river, but day to day, what we actually experienced was closer to a compact, orderly European city good for walking, eating well, and taking things at an easy pace. It’s a city that rewards a slower visit rather than a checklist of sights — there isn’t one single must-see landmark the way there might be in a bigger capital, and we found that freeing rather than a drawback.

Why the timing worked

Fitting Zürich between Madrid/Seville and the Austrian spas gave the trip a useful change of pace — after the warmth and energy of Spain, a few quieter, colder days in Switzerland worked as a kind of palate cleanser before continuing on toward Austria. Short stops like this one don’t need to carry an entire trip on their own; they just need to earn their place in the itinerary, and a few days of old-town walking and lakeside views did that easily enough. It also helped that Zürich has good, well-connected rail links onward into Austria, which made the next leg of the trip an easy train journey rather than another flight to plan around.

Practical notes

Switzerland runs expensive relative to most of Europe, a well-established and stable fact worth budgeting around honestly rather than being surprised by once you arrive. On the upside, the public transit system — trains and trams alike — is excellent and famously punctual, making it easy to get around Zürich and beyond without a car. February in Zürich is genuinely cold, so proper layering matters if you’re planning to spend real time outdoors along the river or the lake rather than ducking between cafés.

[Editor’s note: add what these few days actually meant to you both — the riverside walks, the cold lake views, whatever stood out most — and swap in your own photos when ready.]