Zurich, Switzerland

I joined the Koreans for breakfast in the common room and we all stared mutely at the TV screen showing the views from the Jungfrauhoch, which were greyer than ever. They had decided to stay on for a few more days - as long as their supply of satsumas held out, I guess - but I didn’t fancy my chances given the forecast. There was to be no winding trip up to Europe’s highest railway station for me, and no sipping espresso whilst gazing across craggy alpine vistas. I had decided to press on eastwards to Zurich.

With Interlaken being something of a dead end surrounded by all those mountains, train was the only sensible option. As it was, it had to double back all the way to Bern, and I gazed at the Thunsee as all my cycling work following its meandering far shore was undone in a matter of minutes.

I hadn’t expected a great deal from Zurich. I had imagined it smelling faintly of money and being full of faceless suits, business hotels and working lunches at which people “touched base”. The weather was still fairly grey as I wheeled Ron out of the station, and it was noticably colder. I was surprised to see quite a  charming little city laid out in front of me. A series of bridges lined the river, which was flanked on both sides by lines of sweet old buildings.

I cycled slowly down the river, dodging the trams and taking in the vibe. There was hardly a suit in sight, and the people milling about seemed quietly content, not hassled or bolshy as I had expected from a financial capital. A lot of people here were clearly well off, but they weren’t flashy with it in the slightest. The river gradually opened up into Lake Zurich, a vast expanse of water which didn’t quite have the visual impact of Lake Geneva but was nevertheless pretty and no doubt cleaner than some of the money that passed through the city.

The hostel was a long way out. Luckily that wasn’t an issue for me with Ron as I cycled through pleasant parkland and a cosy residential district to reach it. Once again, ruthless hostel efficiency was the name of the game as my passport was checked and I was assigned a pristine dorm with a pleasant but slightly depressive Swiss chap and a thoroughly decent Mormon guy from America, who had presumably left his wives at home for the week in order to attend to some non-cult-related business in Zurich.

I chipped back into the centre for a wander around the old town, which was a strange, cobbled muddle of shops, cafes and bars. It is probably the only place in the world where I have seen an adult store next door to a toy shop. I paused in a cafe my guidebook had recommended which sold hot chocolate made from nothing less than real chocolate. Whilst it was pretty good stuff, it didn’t really live up to the billing it had been given. Then again, all confectionery has had a faint air of disappointment about it ever since I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a kid; no real-life sweets can ever evoke the same feelings I had when I first read the description of the taste of Willy Wonka chocolate.

That evening I settled at the empty hostel bar to work on my route for tomorrow. If all went as planned this would be the last night of my brief traversal of Switzerland. It had been an unexpected joy to cycle through and after a couple of days off the bike I felt ready for a big two-wheeled outing to bid it farewell. Lake Zurich seemed ripe for pedalling along, and although my next country destination was far beyond my range at a good sixty miles distant I cunningly plotted a route beyond the lake that hugged the railway tracks, meaning I could easily switch to the iron rails whenever I felt too knackered to go on.

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