End of 2010 in Zurich

Having left Strasbourg  in the morning, I got to Zurich in the afternoon after switching trains at Basel. The trams in Zurich are pretty long and pretty comfortable and took me straight from the Zurich Hbf (train station) all the way to my airport hotel. Having dropped things off there, I took the tram back into the city to explore.

Walking down the famous Bahnhofstrasse from the train station and came across another Christmas market near the northern section of street near the train station. The whole street still pretty packed with people amidst the glow of various Christmas lights. In this section, one can also find many of the big Swiss banking names like UBS and Credit Suisse. And by all means, don't miss Sprüngli, the hugely popular confiserie with its huge selection of goodies.

I was also a bit bemused to see names like Rolex, TAG Heuer and Swatch line the streets.

Ah, Coop - the ubiquitous supermarket/retailer that is as popular in Zurich as Starbucks is in the US.  Any visitor to Zurich will definitely pass by several, if not many, stores from this chain. This particular one had several floors of clothing, various home furnishing items and ...

a neat little cafe on the top floor.

where I stopped by for a mid-afternoon snack.

Dinner was at Zeughauskeller, supposedly a pretty popular restaurant/beer hall where there specialty was sausages. So I went with a sausage from Engadine valley and if memory serves, a sausage from Bassersdorf.  Both were served with a large helping of potato salad. Overall the sausages were pretty good, the atmosphere was good; a little crowded inside though, but prices were a tad on the high side considering the two plates ended up costing almost $40. Everything seems to be more expensive in Europe =(

After dinner, took a short stroll to get some night shots of Zurich before heading home.