A glimpse of Zurich
Street art in Zurich, within walking distance of the central railway station
For our winter school holidays ski trip to Switzerland we flew into Geneva and out of Zurich. This gave us the opportunity to see a little bit of a French-speaking and a German-speaking Swiss city.
More street art in Zurich. Somebody has a focus on painting carrots and my son suggested that I photograph this and put it on my blog. He also asked me to photograph the litter on the streets and post that on this blog. We are from clean Canberra, Australia and we live in clean Trondheim, Norway and we aren’t used to seeing litter like in Zurich
We stayed in the comfortable Inside Five City Apartments on Motorenstrasse. We chose it because it offered 3 beds (so our children didn’t have to share a bed or even worse a sofa bed), it was affordable, it has a kitchen and it was within walking distance of the central railway station so we could easily get to the airport the next morning.
It’s an antiquated concept to me to have a cigarette factory. Australia’s anti-smoking campaign has been very effective and the rules around smoking and advertising of cigarettes are very restrictive. The BBC world service has an interesting series of documentaries about My Perfect Country and they focus each episode on one attractive strategy implemented somewhere in the world. From Australia they focused on the anti-smoking campaign. I can recommend that you download the podcasts of the documentary series.
The train ride from Grindelwald to Zurich was easy. We caught 4 trains and managed to get seats on 3 of those trains. We waited no more than 6 minutes between trains at each change and the SBB app allowed us to plan the route and know what station and platform to change trains.
Spring has come to Zurich already! We enjoyed the play ground and sunshine in this park
Trondheim is still covered in snow but not Zurich
These snow drops are huge!
We took a stroll around Zurich to the NW of the lake. There’s a lot of street art and graffiti, litter and people around using the public spaces. The skate park beside the river is popular.
Interesting doorway
After visiting two parks we re-crossed the river and came across a public art workshop that was vibrant and very cool with a bar next door. I would have loved to enjoy a warm drink at the bar and watch the artists at work but parents often don’t get to do such decadent things!
Open air, public art workshop
Look at this cool artwork!
We wandered around the outside of the national museum, enjoying the gardens, mosaics and friezes.
National museum
Detail of one mosaic presumably showing a crusade
This mail carriage was in the entryway to the national museum
strivetoengage 
The open air public art space looks fantastic. A drink and watching the artists work sounds like a wonderful afternoon.
Yes, I agree! If you are fortunate enough to do that in Zurich let me know!
I love the idea of artists creating art in a public space. I suppose that it wouldn’t suit more introverted artists but for those that can be creative with an audience it makes the creative process more accessible to those of us who aren’t artists.
I agree. I am always curious about artist’s methods and love being able to watch them while they work. For someone who lacks creativity in that sense, it’s a window into the creative mind.