After a bit of a lie in, we left to explore Zurich city. Another sunny day!

First stop – a boat trip along the river and into the lake. We took one of the ‘bus’ type commuter ferries from near the train station, which headed south down the river.

The buildings lining the river are pretty – old tall townhouses, with shutters on their windows. After ducking under the 7 bridges of the city, we were out onto the lake. Zurich lake is 140km long and 143m deep at it’s deepest point.

There were lots of other boats out on the lake – small finishing boats, pleasure boats, small sailing boats, expensive yachts and ferries towards the southern towns. It was pretty. The whole boat ride took around 40 minutes and was CHF 6.20 (£4.10) per person.

We hopped off near the southern part of the city, right in the middle of the old buildings and the churches.

The Grossmünster was towering over us, this is a twin towered cathedral, built in the 9th century. We couldn’t go inside, so admired from the outside and wandered around the edge. On the opposite side of the river is the church at St Peterskirke, which has the largest clock face in Europe.

Around here are all the narrow, winding streets, with cute little shops and cafés, covered in Swiss flags.

However being a Sunday, most were closed, which was a shame. We spent a while wandering around and getting lost in the maze of streets. Apparently the cafe to try out here is Sprüngli. According to their website “who doesn’t know them…Sprüngli’s world famous Luxemburgerlis?”

Uh. Well. I’d never heard of a Luxemburgerli.

Turns out a Luxemburgerli is a macaron. The same as you get from Laduree. Well there you go. I always thought they were French…. And also not the same as Lindt & Sprüngli. Which is also Swiss. And basically right next door. Learning so much. Further, after a bit more research – I was right. Macarons are French. Luxembegerlis are just the brand name for a Swiss version. I feel cheated.

Well after all that I didn’t even try one.

We found the cafe, it was cute, we sat out on the street and people-watched. I had a small slice of a chocolate fondant cake and it was really tasty! Around 3pm, we headed back to the main train station and caught a train back to the airport. It’s so easy and quick!

We had plenty of shopping time before our 5pm flight. And the shops here were quite good. Well, there was a Lindt shop and a Sprüngli shop. So I finally managed to buy some 99% Lindt cacao (that I have been wanting all weekend) and spend my last francs on some Sprüngli chocolate. Zurich was fun! No massive sights to see, but it was nice to wander around the pretty, old city in the sunshine. Then it was back on the plane, to London Heathrow. Where we landed 10 minutes early! But met with a massive, massive passport queue in terminal 5….welcome home….