Quick Trip Through Switzerland And Germany
My last post was all about the my on-mountain experience at Zermatt as my first ski trip to Europe. Unlike my big Asia trip last fall which lasted three weeks, this trip was for only a week with half of it at Zermatt as the ski component and the other half going through Zurich in Switzerland and then up to Dusseldorf in Germany to visit a long time scuba diving friend before finally ending up in Frankfurt where I flew back home to Canada from.
My Tourist Impressions On Zermatt Switzerland
I already wrote about my stay in Zermatt in the last post but I’ll add here that for the most part (except for the noisy hotel I stayed at), my time in Zermatt was quite pleasant. It was a small village very easy to walk around in and was super safe. The only traffic I had to worry about were the little electric vehicles that buzzed around. But as I mentioned in the last post, Zermatt and Switzerland on the whole is super expensive.
After getting off the ski slopes and getting my fill of the magnificent views of the Matterhorn and Swiss Alps each day, I have to admit that the town got a bit boring for me. I didn’t find much else to do in Zermatt within the village itself since I think the big attractions there for both skiers and general tourists alike would be the natural scenery of the mountains. Zermatt as a town was pleasant enough but unless you really like shopping at pricey high end shops and eating at expensive restaurants (which isn’t me), then I found myself with more downtime than expected.
On my departure day I took a very early train out of Zermatt which in itself was super easy since its train station is very small. Much like the train getting into Zermatt, my journey back to Zurich was about 3.5 hours.
My Thoughts On Zurich Switzerland
Fortunately, I bought a so called Saver Day Pass on the Swiss transit system which covered me not only for the trains I took from Zermatt but also all city transit within Zurich for the rest of the day too. So after arriving at the Zurich airport, I transferred onto a city tram to go two stops to my airport hotel which was much more comfortable and quiet (not to mention cheaper) than my hotel in Zermatt. After dumping my luggage at the hotel, I got back on the tram to the airport to get back on a train to get into the city to see its main tourist area which is walking distance from the central train station in Zurich.
The main tourist area is along a river that runs through Zurich and each side has some nice older European style buildings along with a few big churches. Some of these churches have giant clock towers. I took a relaxing stroll on both sides of the river and made it to the bay as well passing through many expensive outdoor cafes. Being on my own and cheap, I opted to buy a coffee at the local grocery store.
This tourist area was at least fairly compact and I was done after about an hour. After having my coffee by the riverside, I decided that instead of taking the train back to the airport, I had so much time left that I hopped on the city tram instead. I knew that one particular tram line would take me all the way back to the airport so I thought that I would take this longer route through the city and see more of it this way. I got to get the locals’ experience of commuting through this tram ride. Once back at the airport, I stopped inside the terminal’s grocery store to pick up my dinner before taking the two tram stops back to my hotel for the night.
Overall, Zurich was pleasant as a bigger city and fairly clean. My visit to the tourist area in the city helped kill about 2-3 hours overall but that’s all I needed. I’m glad that I got to spend a day/night in Zurich since I’ve never been there before but in my opinion, that’s really all the time I would have wanted to spend there. I had an early morning flight up to Dusseldorf, Germany which I was looking forward to since I’ll get to catch up with my scuba friend Thomas.
Catching Up With A Long Time Scuba Diving Buddy In Dusseldorf Germany
A long time scuba diving buddy of mine whom I met in Canada had moved back to Germany a few years ago and this Europe trip was an opportunity to visit him in Dusseldorf, a city I’ve never been to before. Thomas picked me up at the Dusseldorf airport and we headed into the tourist area which is even smaller than that of Zurich. Since we got there before the weekend crowd arrived, it was a nice short visit to get an overview of the main Dusseldorf area called Altstadt. Again much like in Zurich, this part of the city with some older classic European architecture was right along a river.
I wanted Thomas to show me some real authentic German cuisine since I showed him real authentic Asian food when he was in Canada. We actually had a tough time finding a German restaurant within the Altstadt area so we decided to drive out to the suburbs where Thomas found a small local eatery. We knew this would be authentic since its menu was entirely in German. I had already designated this day as a meat day for myself after the last few days in Switzerland sticking with my mostly plant based diet.
As I predicted, my visit catching up with Thomas ended up being one of the main highlights on this trip (with the other being the Matterhorn and Swiss Alps of course). After Thomas dropped me off at my hotel back in the city, I took a ride on the local bus around Dusseldorf to see more of the local life. I was quite surprised on how much cultural diversity there is in Dusseldorf. The area around my hotel had quite a lot of Japanese and Middle Eastern eateries.
I wouldn’t call Dusseldorf a big tourist destination as it’s really just a small to mid-sized normal German city. But much like with Zurich, one day/night in Dusseldorf was enough for me. The next morning was to catch a high speed train to Frankfurt from the main train station which was only three minutes walk from my hotel.
Big City Frankfurt Germany
The high speed trains I took on this trip were really something. Although part of the train journey between Zurich and Zermatt was also on high speed trains, apparently the Swiss trains don’t exceed 200 kilometres per hour which was still pretty fast. In Germany, the train I took from Dusseldorf to Frankfurt was clocked at 292 kilometres per hour! It was going so fast that my ears popped and much of the countryside was a blur. A good thing about going so fast was that the journey to Frankfurt took only 1.5 hours without any need for transfers.
I was thinking during my time on these trains why these high speed monsters on rails are not available anywhere in North America. Canada and USA often consider their countries to be modern and advanced yet rail transit services are so slow — modern and advanced my ass!
I arrived at the main train station in Frankfurt where my hotel was just several minutes walking distance and right away I can tell that Frankfurt is a rougher place compared to any of the other places I already visited on this trip. By rougher I mean streets are not as clean, there is more graffiti and we see some more questionable characters (junkies) in the area. However, I never felt unsafe as there were also many other tourists and locals around. Downtown in Medellin Colombia is much worse in comparison.
Nevertheless, my hotel was only 15 minutes walk to the main tourist area in Frankfurt that I wanted to visit and this was a pleasant stroll right along yet another river. This walk was actually quite pleasant as it passed by a business area with tall modern buildings. My destination was an area called Romerburg which was a medieval type of square with old style German buildings which I thought were more charming than the ones I saw in both Dusseldorf and Zurich.
After taking photos and video, I took my time to walk back to my hotel back in the ‘rougher’ part of town near the main train station. Speaking of video, I took only short footages of the town areas in Zermatt, Zurich and Frankfurt (no video in Dusseldorf). They were all short enough that I decided to combine them all into one single video below showing you the main tourist areas of each location.
My Overall Impression Of My Europe Trip
So for me, my overall impression of this short Europe trip was that I’m glad that I went but a week was just about the right duration. This is because for me, the top highlights from this trip was most definitely the natural scenery from the mountain tops of the Swiss Alps and seeing the Matterhorn during the ski portion of my stay at Zermatt. Once I got off the mountain, I found myself with too much downtime in the village with not much else to do.
The train rides through Switzerland and Germany were interesting. The high speed trains were new for me and to travel so fast like that was probably a first time novelty for me – maybe I’ll get bored of it if I took too many of these. I expect to be on high speed trains again when I visit Japan later this year. But even the slower trains closer to Zermatt were interesting because of the bigger windows enabling nice views of the beautiful Swiss countryside.
The cities of Zurich, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt had some charming, old European architecture but they all held my interest for maybe only an hour each time at most. It didn’t take me too long before boredom set in after going through each of the main tourist areas. Outside of the main tourist areas were just similar western world normal cities like we have here in North America so nothing was very exciting or out of the ordinary.
As for local cuisine, there were no opportunities at least for what I consider to be available at affordable prices. Unlike Asia, there were no street food vendors that I saw. The one real authentic meal I had was in Dusseldorf with my friend Thomas which was another highlight of my trip since it was great to catch up with him in his home country.
On a personal level, I did feel some sort of accomplishment by navigating all the various public transits in both Switzerland and Germany on my own. Of course, transit systems in Europe tend to be more efficient than what we have here in North America anyway.
I’m sure that I will return to Europe in the future since I would like to go back and ski in countries like Austria, France and even Italy. I’ll just have to research my future European trips to ensure that I spend more time in areas known more for natural scenery rather than risk getting bored in the big city environment.
