Sunday, 2 July 2006
In the night we stopped in several German cities along the Rhine, and by daybreak the train was passing through the Black Forest region in south-west Germany, into Switzerland.
The train arrived in Zürich at 8:20, a small enough city to explore by foot. I first went across Lake Zürich and walked along the Niederdorfstr. True, Zürich was a very clean and efficient city, but I still managed to find occasionally some small garbage items on the street, unlike some guide books would claim. The Niederstr. was cobbled, typical of a town centre in Central Europe. Most shops were still asleep early Sunday morning, and I was almost, too, that morning. Walking around the Art Museum, I veered south and came to Bellevueplatz close by the lake. There was a bicycle race that morning on the road running parallel to the lake; thus crossing it required some considerably patience and talent. Walking north along the lake, I saw the Wasserkirche (church) and a town house ( Rathaus) before crossing the bridge to the west side. Here the streets were still, for the most part, cobbled, and winding a lot--it was easy to get lost. I came across St. Peter's Church, which reputedly had the largest clock-face in Europe. Some distance to the north of it was the Augustine Church. Drawn by the bell and the crowd, I entered it, and briefly prayed. It was a gorgeous morning, and as I walked out of the church, I could almost feel the light prayer, together with my worries and anxieties, carried with the sound of bells, rising, rising, until it dissolved into the infinite blueness above.
The writer James Joyce lived in Zürich for a while, and there was a house commemorating him beside the Augustine Church. Going northwards still, I started climbing a hill, and at the top was the Lindenhof--an ancient Roman fortress. Most of the Roman architecture had already disappeared, but the place offered an excellent view of the hilly west Zürich and the blue lake. Coming down, I managed to find Bahnhofstr., cluttered with higher-trend shopping places. It was only about 10:45, but I felt that I had enough of Zürich (or at least the places I could visit on foot).
I entered the big underground shopping mall leading to the train station, and bought my lunch there. Then I went into the train station and looked for a train to Sargans. The train departed at 11:15.
It is quite justifiable to see many parts Switzerland by being sedentary on a train, because the landscape could change often, and often dramatically. The train first went south along the Zürich Lake on the west side, and slowly mountains, some snow-capped, rose in the distant horizon on the right-hand side. Then we passed a tunnel. Upon emerging from the tunnel, there was a completely different pastoral view: farms built at the foot of mountains. Crossing another tunnel, on the left-hand side, another lake appeared--and on the other side of the lake stood a wall of mountains, their distorted rock layers exposed and clearly visible. Such beauty!