Rhein Falls, Singen, Germany
The morning did not look so great but way better than the previous because it was not raining. The Rhein Falls were already flooded with school kids in day trips. The falls are no so large but the path going down into them were so well built that were bringing you to the water level that was almost falling on you. Finally the sun started to peek out from the clouds and we spend way more time than we planned there, b ut we shied away of taking the boat and getting soaked in the middle of the river.
We left to Schaffhausen, that is extremely closed and we enjoyed a visit in a charming jewel of a city that looks more German than Swiss. Schaffhausen was the only town in Switzerland that was bombed, and even twice, in WW2 by the Allies who confused it with German territory being so close to the border.
Schafhausen, Switzerland
The center has so many old buildings that most of them have oriel bay window, highly decorated, some of them astounding. The three squares have in the middle fountains with statues, one of them having Wilhelm Tell, the legendary hero of Switzerland.
We could not stay longer, I spite of the beauty of the place because we wanted to spend some time in Zurich, located luckily at 50 km.
Zurich
The first thing we did in Zurich was to find a parking place, that we found out that may cost as much as the car rental for a day if you leave it longer. Limmat river crosses the city and flows in lake Zurich. All the main things to see are in a very narrow perimeter of the old city so we started to stroll the pedestrian area. The main churches, Fraumunster and Grossmunster have stained glass windows by Chagal, respectively Giacometti. Cabaret Voltaire, the place where DADA movement started is still in existence but as a small exhibition place and located very close to Kunsthaus, the main art museum that has an impressive modern collection, where Giacometti and Munch have a remarkable presence. I strolled also to the new ex-working district that sports a new spirit, young and creative, where the museum of design is located. Punk guys with spiked collars were lying on the sidewalks have drinks guarded by their dogs.
After about 4 hours of walk we took the car and drove to the lake’s shore trying to find a restaurant but to no avail so we returned in the city and ate in the pedestrian area.
The Hilton Apart hotel, booked at the airport for convenience, received us with confusing rules. No Internet was available except in the business lounge and the parking was free only for three hours, and latter you had to pay an astronomical sum, that latter proved to be less than advertising. After I filled up the tank and paid for parking we went to bed just to wake up four hours latter to bring my family to the airport. They were flying through Vienna on Austrian Airlines on miles and my flight was direct on Swiss three hours latter. So I returned and had my breakfast, read a book, left to the airport, dropped the car and cleared all security and barely made the flight in time.
In the plane I spoke with some girls coming to NYC from Greece and the discussion obviously came to the current situation in the country. Similar with the discussion I had with a Portuguese guy in a previous flight from Bucharest, the girls were very apprehensive about the future and considered that the entire scenario is actually already written in Berlin and Paris and Greece has only to follow orders. The lack of jobs is prevalent, the insecurity about the current jobs being combined with the fled of multinational corporations. The sense of lack of independence of the past proud countries in Europe is prevalent everywhere you go and the conspiracy theories abound regarding the way these countries are controlled by the big finance. Similar with Romania where the feeling is that the country is run by thugs, dressed as politicians, in Greece the situation is similar and nobody is resigning or is found responsible for the present situation. I wished the to enjoy New York and they promised to do because, as they said, probably will be the last trip outside of the country we will do for a long time….
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