I left Newark at 6:30 PM on October 3, 2015 and arrived in Zürich at 8:41 am on October 4th.  It was a beautiful partly cloudy day with the temperatures in the low 60’s.

This was a six-day trip that had two Zurich layovers; one on the 4th and the second on the 7th. On my first layover I decided to hit the ground running, so after arriving at the hotel I had a brief conversation with the hotel concierge and decided to take a Greyline city tour of Zürich.

The tour started at the bus station across the two rivers from our hotel and continued toward the downtown Zürich area, then on to Lake Zurich, then returning to the bus station about 4 hours later. Armed with a general overview on how to get around the city, I took the trolley back downtown and stayed until well after sunset. (Click on the map to make it full size; then hit the back button on your browser when you are through to come back to this page).

Limmat River near our hotel.

Limmat River downtown Zurich

Limmat River near Lake Zurich

Grossmunster. A Protestant church, that according to legend, is sitting on the site of a Carolingian church originally commissioned by Charlemagne.  The present structure dates to 1100 AD.

Downtown Zurich

Lake Zurich with the Alps in the background.

Zurich at night.

I left Zurich around 1:30 pm the next day and flew to Washington Dulles. After a 25 hour layover I flew back to Zurich arriving near 8:00 am on October 7th.  The weather was overcast with light drizzle falling and temperatures in the high 50’s. Unfortunately, the weather stayed like that the whole day.
I decided to take the Greyline Heidiland Tour later that morning.  The tour started at 10:00, so I changed, grabbed my camera gear and hustled back over to the bus stop.

The Heidiland Tour left Zurich and followed the shores of Lake Zurich to the town of Rapperswil where we disembarked and had lunch.  I skipped lunch and took pictures.

Bridge to Rapperswil

Rapperswil

After lunch, we were back on the bus and headed for the capital of Liechtenstein, Valduz.

This is a picture of “Monument Man” staring into the sky with the Vaduz Castle in the background.  The Castle is the home of the reigning prince of Liechtenstein.

Upon leaving Vaduz we headed to the town of Maienfeld and the Heidi House.  Maienfeld is the setting for Johanna Spyri’s Heidi stories.

Heidi’s House

The village of Maienfeld as viewed from the Heidi House.

The village of Maienfeld as viewed from the Heidi House.

Following our visit of the Heidi House, we got back on the bus and returned to Zurich.