2009 World trip with the Percivals

Switzerland

Monday 2009-03-23   Los Angeles International (LAX)  The Swiss part of our adventure begins at LAX.  The plane is an Airbus A340 with four engines. It has a 2-4-2 seating arrangement and is too short of  overhead space for my liking.
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Monday 2009-03-23   Los Angeles International (LAX)  We had a slightly bad moment when Jenni discovered she'd left the Video camera in the rental car. We returned to Alamo but it had already been stolen. UPDATE: insurance came good to the tune of $1600, enough to buy a new camera.
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Tuesday 2009-03-24   Zurich Switzerland  We arrive in Zurich the next afternoon after an overnight flight.
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Tuesday 2009-03-24   Zurich Switzerland  And it's snowing.  Our rooms were great though - probably the largest we've had in Europe.  That night we spent a very pleasant evening with Peter and Rosemarie Germann in their beautiful home in the Zurich hills.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The next morning, after an excellent breakfast at the hotel, we do a walking tour of Zürich.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  We go via the Bahnhof that we used yesterday to get from the airport.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  We walk down Bahnhofstraße, a street full of high class stores.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  No vehicular traffic, just pedestrians and trams.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Brave little flowers; cold little flowers.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Zürichsee is the large lake on which Zürich is situated. At the moment, snow on the Alps is visible.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The cold kept the pigeons grounded, fluffing their feathers to stay warm.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  We cross the Qualibrucke. Zurich Opera is the square-domed building on the left. The building flying the Swiss flag contains the Ambassador Hotel. Next to it is an apartment block that includes a theatre, restaurant and ballet school.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  We cross the Limmat to the Eastern side. The church steeples belong to the Fraukirche and the St Peterskirche. The building being renovated is the Stadthaus (Town house) and it contains various government offices. The renovations were completed in 2010.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  We went into a Starbuck's to get a coffee and to warm up. Surprisingly, the coffee was pretty good, much better than US or Australian Starbucks. Presumably, Starbucks took their competition seriously in a city with such refined tastes.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland   It started snowing outside the Starbucks, so we waited inside for a while.  Once warm, we then trudged off into the cold with the next stop being the Grossmünster Church.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland   According to legend,     Charlemagne    founded the Grossmünster on this site after his horse bowed down on the spot marking the graves of three early Christian martyrs: Felix, Regula and Exuperantius.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  In the 3rd century,    Felix and Regula    were  members of a Christian Roman legion that was to be executed en masse in southwest Switzerland. They fled with Exuperantius, their servant,  and got to Zürich before being tried and sentenced to death.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  One version of the story adds that the governor plunged the three saints into boiling oil and forced them to drink molten lead. The trio still refused to renounce their faith and so were beheaded.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The three martyrs then picked up their heads, walked 40 paces up the hill, dug their own graves and buried themselves. Sounds like a Monty Python script but of such stuff are legends made. Felix and Regula were brother and sister.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The Grossmünster reached prominence because of     Huldrych Zwingli     who became Pastor of the Grossmünster in 1518.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland   Zwingli was a contemporary of     Martin Luther    and one of the leaders of the      Reformation    (an attempt by Luther to reform the Catholic Church that resulted in a schism that grew into a wider movement).
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Preaching for 12 years from Grossmünster's pulpit, Zwingli called for religious freedom, encouraged priests to get married (as he had done), attacked idolatry and denounced the Catholic Mass.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  In 1524, he removed all altar paintings and church treasures from the church. Under Zwingli, Zürich became a major religious centre that attracted students and theologians from near and far. By 1529, the Swiss cities of Bern, Basel and St. Gallen had also adopted the Reformation.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The stained-glass windows in the choir were made in 1933 by Augusto Giacometti and they depict angels above the Three     Magi     bearing gifts to the Virgin and Child. The term Magi  is most commonly used in reference to the    Gospel of Matthew's    "Wise men from the East" who attended the     Nativity of Jesus.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The    Zurich Bible    is a translation based on Huldrych Zwingli's translation. His translation of the New Testament appeared from 1525 to 1529 and a complete translation of both testaments was first printed in 1531. The bible on display has verse numbering which was introduced in 1589.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Martin Luther translated the new testamant into German in 1522 and published the complete bible in 1534 (pictured).   Luther’s work inspired    Wlliam Tyndale    to publish an English version of the bible.  Tyndale made his purpose known to the Bishop of London who refused permission to write heretical text.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland   Tyndale illegally procured a copy of Luther's New Testament in 1522, moved to Hamburg Germany, consulted with Luther, translated the text directly from Hebrew and Greek and published an     English language version    in 1525. As the bibles arrived in England, they were confiscated and burned. Church authorities arrested Tyndale in Belgium in 1535, charged him with heresy, executed him by strangling, then burnt his body at the stake.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland    Around 90% of the    King James Version    of the bible (completed in 1611) is from Tyndale’s works with as much as one third of the text being word-for-word from Tyndale. One estimate suggests the New Testament in the King James Version is 83% Tyndale's, and the Old Testament 76%.  Opposite us is  St Peterskirche which was consecrated in 1706 as the first church built under Protestant rule.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  This is the Fraumünster church of Zürich founded in 853 by Louis the German for his daughter Hildegard.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The choir of the Fraumünster contains five stained glass windows, installed in 1970, that were designed by Marc Chagall.  Each window has a dominant color and depicts a different Christian story.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The two towers of the Grossmünster were first erected between 1487 and 1492. Richard Wagner is known to have mocked the church's appearance as that of two pepper shakers.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Looking up the Eastern side of the Limmat River. The imposing building up to the right is Zurich University.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The Rudolf-Brun-Brücke (bridge) is in the centre. Lindenhof is visible near the middle left and the large building near the bridge is the railway station
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  This red spire belongs to the Grossmünster and appears to be the bell tower.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Looking south, the weather has turned unbelievably bad. The snow capped peaks of the Alps that we could see earlier, have disappeared in the sleet.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The Wasserkirche (Water Church) is below us. In medieval legend, the Wasserkirche is the execution place of the three martyrs.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  View of the Grossmünster from the Münsterbrücke (1838) . The Wasserkirche is to the right of the white building.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  What I really enjoy about the more progressive European cities and villages is the way so many of the streets are converted to pedestrian plazas.  Vehicular traffic flows much better and everyone is happier.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  We found a delightful coffee shop here and had a delightful coffee. Inside the shop there were many delightful young Swiss women.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The Stork Hotel near the Rathausbrücke. Note the boat landing for the wealthier guests.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The Rathaus (Zürich Town Hall) was built in 1694-1698 and it served as the seat of government of the Republic of Zürich until 1798.  The Canton of Zürich has owned the building  since 1803 and it houses both the cantonal and the city's parliaments.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The quaint house on the waterfront is the Haus zum Rüden (House for males).  It was built in 1348 and a society of noblemen met here from 1348 to 1400,  It is now a restaurant that caters for groups of various sizes in different rooms on different floors.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  It was so cold that these branches shriveled up.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  We did not expect to see flowers at this time of year. The peach yes, the flowers no.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  We're on the western side of the river and follow some steps up to Lindenhof.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The Lindenhof  hill is a moraine hill  (glacially formed) and is the historic center of Zurich.  It is part of Zurich's Altstadt (Old Town) district.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  During the reign of Roman Emperor Valentinian I (364–375), to defend against Alamanni migrations from the north, the Romans built a citadel on Lindenhof hill.  It was 4500 m² in area,  it had ten towers and walls 2 m wide.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The Lindenhof remained a place of civil assembly into modern times. In 1798, the citizens of Zürich swore an oath on the constitution of the Helvetic Republic on the Lindenhof.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Which brings to mind, why does Switzerland use the CH abbreviation? It stands for the country's  official name in Latin: "Confoederatio Helvetica".
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Being written in Latin avoids the problem of favouring one of Switzerland's four languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland   The Swiss flag is very strongly Christian and the red stands for the blood of Christ while the white cross represents the cross on which he was crucified.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The Hedwig fountain (1688) commemorates the 1291 defense of the town by the women of Zürich against Albert I of Germany.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  From Lindenhof, we could see the Urania observatory. It was first commissioned in 1907 and is equipped with both a refracting and an optical telescope. The observatory is still in use with the telescopes and the dome having been recently restored.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The fascinating streets of Old Town.  Even more fascinating is that a public car park has been built under Linderhof.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Easter is still three weeks away but the Easter chocolates are already on sale.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Emptying a garbage bin is usually not all that interesting.  However, this one's an exception.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Because it goes back into a huge hole in the ground . . .
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  . . . with only a small part protruding above the ground.  Amazing.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Jenni and I head for the observatory tower while Bonnie and Dennis find somewhere to eat.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  To get to the tower, we enter a fancy restaurant and take the elevator to the top.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  We're on the western side looking east and that's the university again.  The building with the dome is the famed    ETH Zurich    where Einstein enrolled in 1896 for his undergraduate degree.  University alumni have been awarded 31 Nobel Prizes including Einstein's in 1921.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The weather has cleared slightly since we climbed the Grossmünster's tower, but it is still bitterly cold. From here, we can see all three of Zürich's historic churches and Lindenhof in the centre.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Zürich has an unbelievably good public transport system. If not the best in the world, it must at least be its equal.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Urine and a  foolish person?  I was relieved to learn that it means "Watches & Jewellery".
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  Zurich is one of the wealthiest cities in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and the foodstuffs available in the delicatessens reflect this.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The cold eventually wins and  we decide to quit our sightseeing tour of Zurich.  On the way back to our hotel, we stop at the National Museum.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The museum was built in 1898 by Gustav Gull in the style of a French Renaissance chateau.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  The building itself is vastly more interesting than its exhibits.
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Wednesday 2009-03-25   Zurich Switzerland  On our way back to the hotel, we spot this sign at the railway station. I think it's hilarious.
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Thursday 2009-03-26    Zurich Switzerland  Next morning and it's time to get our rental car and head for Germany. We decide to walk to the Alamo Car Rental place the other side of the river.
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Thursday 2009-03-26    Zurich Switzerland  It looks like we're lost but we only thought we were. Alamo car rental is at the end of this road.  Our adventures continue in the    Germany & Austria    folder.
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